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WMO pilot study of Global Riverine Flood Prediction Products

Activity Areas (1)

WMO Integrated Processing and Prediction System (WIPPS)

Floods are recognized as priority hazards under the Early Warnings for All (EW4All) initiative in many regions and therefore WMO aims to support Members’ flood forecasting and warning services by providing them with global flood prediction products through WIPPS. A number of global hydrology and land modelling efforts exist, and a small subset of these efforts produces real-time global forecasts of streamflow on an operational basis. Some of the latest operational global riverine flood prediction products are generated by non-traditional sources. Non-traditional sources are considered as entities other than national governmental organizations or partner international/intergovernmental organizations, such as private sector entities, academic sector entities, or non-partner international/intergovernmental organizations. 

Having products from non-traditional sources contributing to the WMO Integrated Processing and Prediction System (WIPPS) may bring new challenges that need to be evaluated carefully. For this reason, and because global riverine flood prediction activities are still relatively new, a pilot phase was suggested to assess the general prospect of providing global riverine flood products from both traditional and non-traditional sources to WMO Members, supporting objectives of EW4All initiative, and to gain experience with their outputs (and potential products) that can facilitate their possible future contribution to WIPPS. 

The WMO Executive Council at its seventy-eighth session, therefore, requested the Commission for Observation, Infrastructure and Information Systems (INFCOM) in collaboration with the Commission for Weather, Climate, Hydrological, Marine and Related Environmental Services and Applications (SERCOM) to identify user requirements for the products, and to conduct a pilot exercise to examine the utility of and the technical challenges involved in using products from traditional and non-traditional sources in the WIPPS, with the aim of developing a WIPPS activity regarding global riverine flood prediction products to meet user requirements (Resolution 21 (EC-78)). The outcome of the pilot exercise will be presented at the 4th session of INFCOM (2026).

The WMO pilot study of global riverine flood prediction products will be led by the SC-WIPPS expert team on Operational Hydrological Prediction Systems (ET-OHPS) in collaboration with SERCOM. The expected outcomes of the pilot study are: 

  • Suggestions for common forecast products and formats, operational practice, and verification approaches for operational global flood forecasting;
  • Suggestions regarding the possibility, the pathway, the product specification and the requirements to include operational global flood forecasting into WIPPS;
  • and Collection of Members’ feedback regarding the usefulness of operational global flood prediction products.

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