HydroSOS RA VI Technical Session Highlights Strong National Engagement and Data Sharing Progress
The WMO Secretariat, together with HydroSOS technical experts and partners, convened a virtual RA VI technical session to support National Hydrological and Meteorological Services (NMHSs) in understanding how national hydrological status and outlook products can be aligned with the HydroSOS global framework.
The session brought together participants from across the region to exchange experiences, demonstrate national practices, and explore practical pathways for contributing to a standardized global hydrological information system.
The discussions highlighted strong existing national capacity across RA VI and confirmed widespread production of hydrological status products, with increasing use of seasonal outlooks for decision support in water management and drought preparedness.
Key Highlights
- Strong participation from RA VI countries with active hydrological monitoring systems
- Most countries already producing operational hydrological status products
- Growing interest in seasonal hydrological outlooks
- Streamflow remains the most widely used indicator, with increasing use of groundwater and reservoir data
- High level of interest in contributing to HydroSOS data sharing framework
- Clear demand for practical tools, guidance, and capacity development support
The session featured a live interactive survey allowing participants to share real-time information on national hydrological products.
The exercise confirmed:
- Broad availability of national hydrological status systems
- Variation in spatial and temporal scales of products
- Emerging use of multi-variable hydrological indicators
- Strong interest in improving comparability through HydroSOS
Speakers demonstrated how HydroSOS supports:
- Standardised categorisation of hydrological conditions
- Integration of national products into regional and global views
- Flexible data sharing through APIs, SharePoint, or file-based systems
- Minimal additional processing using provided conversion tools
Importantly, HydroSOS was highlighted as a harmonisation framework, not a modelling system, and does not replace national forecasting methodologies.
Next Steps
- Countries will review internal processes for data sharing participation
- Technical onboarding support will continue for interested NMHSs
- Further development of data integration and skill transparency approaches will be explored
- Preparation continues for the in-person HydroSOS workshop, scheduled for 28 September, in Bucharest