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Enhancing adaptive capacities of Andean communities through climate services
A new WMO project is being implemented in the Andes to increase resilience and adaptive capacities to climate variability and change. The four-year, US$ 7.4 million Enhancing Adaptive Capacity of Andean Communities through Climate Services (ENANDES) project will strengthen the capacity of vulnerable communities in Chile, Colombia, and Peru to adapt to a changing climate through accessible and understandable climate information.
To launch the project, over 200 partners from 40 institutions across 16 countries met virtually over three days in early February. The meeting fostered commitment and collaboration among partners towards:
- Providing a common understanding of the scope, objectives, and components of the project
- Encouraging complementary action by national and regional services related to climate, weather and water
- Ensuring coordination between all actors at both national and regional levels
- Encouraging decision-makers to use workspaces designed to foster collective intelligence and development of cross-sectoral and multi-national plans and activities.
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Mikko Ollikainenn, Executive Manager at the Adaptation Fund, the project’s funding entity, highlighted the central role climate plays on human welfare, and the heightening interest in enhancing operational provision of climate services as risk management and adaptation tools at the regional and national levels. He noted that ENANDES would yield tangible results to facilitate further implementation of climate services in the beneficiary countries, hopefully offering a model for replication and scaling up.
Directors of the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services of Chile, Colombia and Peru also underlined the importance the project would have in enhancing life in rural communities in their respective countries. They further highlighted the benefits of providing concrete support and of strengthening cross-border coordination and collaboration amongst themselves to provide communities with reliable real-time meteorological forecasts and warnings and user-focused climate information.
For more information on the ENANDES project see here.
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Early warnings protect lives on Africa's Lake Victoria
A successful four-year project in East Africa has demonstrated how improved weather, water and climate services save lives and livelihoods and support socio-economic development of vulnerable communities. The High Impact Weather Lake System (HIGHWAY) project established a pilot regional Early Warning System from 2017 to 2021 to inform fisherfolk and other local stakeholders about high impact weather events on Lake Victoria. As the results the project have come in, there is now growing momentum to scale up the investment as part of support for the implementation plan of the East African Community (EAC) Regional Early Warning System Vision 2025.
Initial studies concluded that the HIGHWAY project benefited more than 200 000 people directly and 1.4 million indirectly. The project has also reduced annual weather-related deaths on the lake by 30% - thus saving more than 300 lives per year, according to the studies. Economic benefits of the project are estimated at US$ 44 million per year, a benefit to cost ratio of 16:1.
“The WISER HIGHWAY project is a great example of how to increase resilience to climate change through the improvement of weather and climate services. HIGHWAY has worked with partners across East Africa and leaves a legacy of improved services along with a commitment to ongoing development. HIGHWAY demonstrates the difference partner funding can make to lives and livelihoods when implemented through a coordinated and collaborative approach. Fewer lives lost and less damage to property,” commented Julius Court, Deputy High Commissioner and Development Director, FCDO, Nairobi, Kenya.
HIGHWAY was funded by the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) through the Weather and Climate Information Services for Africa (WISER) programme. HIGHWAY project partners have issued a call for greater investment by international development partners, to build upon the FCDO investment and support the implementation of the Regional Early Warning System Vision 2025.
The participating countries have committed to increasing regional cooperation for the delivery of more accurate, timely and reliable impact-based early warning services, notably by the availing of data through the WMO Information System (WIS) and application of an EAC policy for sharing of meteorological data. They have also agreed to work within their respective governments to ensure sustained resourcing for such efforts.
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For more information on the HIGHWAY project see here.
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Tongan commercial farmers to participate in pilot demonstration project for seasonal forecasts
Ten farmers will be conducting crop trials using seasonal forecast outputs over the coming year with support from the CREWS Pacific SIDS project. The farmers, identified during the Tonga Meteorological Service’s (TMS) second National Climate Outlook Forum (NCOF) for Agriculture, will receive the resources to prepare their lands and purchase basic agricultural tools and equipment to assist in this pilot project. The trials, which will test a range of crops in the different soil types on the main Tongan Island of Tongatapu, should demonstrate the increased production and crop resilience that ensue when following TMS’ seasonal forecasts.
TMS hosted the NCOF for Agriculture in October 2020 to gain a better understanding of the needs of farmers in terms of climate services to improve their crop yields. The participants included the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (MAFF), and the Agro-Meteorology Sub-Group of the Agriculture Sector Growth Committee as well as local farmers. The discussions focused on the strengthening of platforms for dialogue between TMS and farmers in order to enhance understanding of the weather and climate information and services that have been developed to assist farmers in their crop planning.
The NCOF also provided the farmers with a better understanding of climate information products, including their uncertainties and limitations, and explored the further needs of the communities;. It encouraged the use of the climate and weather information by farmers to mitigate risks in in the agricultural sector and looked at the risks and opportunities related to past, current and future climate. TMS received user feedback to improve the usability of current climate and weather products and services to make information more accessible, user-friendly and relevant, and thus maximize the benefit derived by end-users from climate prediction and information services. They further discussed the delivery mechanism of climate information and services and the collection of Traditional Knowledge data to complement local scientific forecasts.
Many Pacific Island States are experiencing greater climate variability due to climate change and as a result have focused on local farming rather than imports to ensure a subsistence food supplies for their people. In Tonga, economic development is threatened, and those threats are likely to worsen. In the current context, and even more so in the future, understanding and effective use of climate and disaster risk information is critical to ensure efficiency and sustainability.
Maloni Havea, the Head of the Extension unit of MAFFF, explained, “It is extremely important that the farming community make use of the services and products provided from the Tonga Meteorological Services to inform their decision-making. Following such advise will reduce the vulnerability for farms to the effects of the weather and the climate.”
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Training in Eastern Africa strengthens severe weather forecasting capabilities
WMO conducted a one-week online workshop on Severe Weather and Impact-Based Warning Services from 22 to 26 February to strengthen capabilities of operational forecasters in Eastern Africa. The workshop trained over 20 forecasters from the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services of Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, United Republic of Tanzania and Uganda, all participants in the Severe Weather Forecasting programme (SWFP)-Eastern Africa.
Expert lecturers were provided by the Met Office (UK), WMO Regional Specialized Meteorological Centres in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and the Space Science and Engineering Center of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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The training covered:
- The interpretation of Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) tools, including Ensemble Prediction System (EPS), outputs
- The use of the tools implemented through the HIGH impact Weather lAke sYstem (HIGHWAY) project
- Tools for communicating severe weather to the general public, disaster management units, media, and other stakeholders and users.
The workshop will help to improve the use of Early Warning System tools for emergency preparedness and response and recovery efforts, and to reduce the impact of shocks on vulnerable people and their livelihoods especially over Lake Victoria Basin.
Severe Weather Forecasting programme (SWFP)-Eastern Africa started as a demonstration project in 2010, to make efficient use of the “cascading forecasting process" of the WMO Global Data Processing and Forecasting System (GDPFS).
Since 2017, activities under SWFP-Eastern Africa have taken place mainly through the HIGH impact Weather lAke sYstem (HIGHWAY) project, which is funded by the United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.
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Strategic plan and new funding will boost HydroMeteorological Unit of Haiti
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WMO is supporting the first Haitian national strategic plan to strengthen its Hydro-Meteorological Service (UHM) as well as a new international initiative to build resilience to extreme weather and climate change impacts in the western hemisphere’s most impoverished nation.
The Climate Risk and Early Warning Services (CREWS) Initiative Haiti project was launched on 27 January to improve forecasts and early warnings of hazards such as hurricanes, floods and droughts which regularly impact the vulnerable Caribbean nation. The four-year US$1.5 million CREWS project seeks to improve the capacity of UHM to develop and deliver co-produced multi-hazard alerts, and to strengthen its cooperation with key ministries, priority sectors and local communities. This will be achieved by improving UHM’s technical capacity to calibrate and integrate systems for flood warning and to use numerical weather prediction and forecasts, and by implementing an overall quality management system. A more robust governance framework will support these.
Key objectives of the project include:
- Enhance UHM capacity to deliver high quality services to Civil Protection and other stakeholders
- Establish/improve hydrometeorological warning system; and
- Enhanced preparedness and response capacities at national and community levels.
WMO has been committed to enhance hydrometeorological capacity in Haiti since the devastating 2010 earthquake. Inclusive in this re-building process was a partnership between WMO and Environment and Climate Change Canada (E3C) to initiate a project to restore Haiti’s hydrological and meteorological services. The Climate Services to Reduce Vulnerability in Haiti was allocated CAD 6.5 million by E3C, to be implemented by WMO, to help re-establish these services for all critical sectors and vulnerable communities.
WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas said early warning systems are now more important than ever given that warmer temperatures and waters are providing more heat and humidity to fuel tropical cyclones and associated flooding.
“We have to strengthen observing systems and invest in early warning systems and National Meteorological and Hydrological Services. It has been demonstrated that such investments yield a ten-fold return in terms of avoiding economic and human losses,” said the Secretary-General.
For more information on the CREWS Haiti project see here.
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