The increase awareness of the planet as an integrated system and the vulnerability of human society to extreme weather (as well as to climate changes) are the driving factors that turn WIGOS into an important tool for advising policy and decision makers. By providing an instrument for integrating surface and space based components, WIGOS aims at enabling the integration of WMO observing systems and enhancing the interaction between WMO partner organizations. WIGOS aims at improving access to real-time and non-real-time observations, as well as quality, consistency and traceability of observations, leading to the improvement of products and services. One of its main guidelines are standardization of instruments and methods of observations, WIS information infrastructure, and end-product quality assurance. The present stage of WIGOS deals with its development and implementation; only then will an operational phase take place in which it is expected to become an ongoing programme for decades to come.
The WIGOS pilot project supervised by the CHy is the Integration of Flash Flood Guidance System (FFGS) and the Hydrological Cycle Observing System of the Southern Africa Developing Community (SADC-HYCOS).
WMO and USAID/OFDA in collaboration with NOAA are assessing the capacity in flood forecasting and early warning in the Zambezi river basin, aiming at a strategic plan to circumvent the serious consequences of frequent floodings in the region. Such annual disasters may be thought of as being partially due to the lack of an integrated Flood Forecasting and Early Warning (FFEW) System in the basin. WMO activities in the area include the Flood Forecasting Initiative, the Southern Africa component of the Regional Flash Flood Forecasting Guidance System (SARFFGS), and the SADC-HYCOS, among others. This project forms an integral part of the WMO Flash Flood Initiative (FFI).
During the first week of December 2009, I participated in a regional consultation meeting held in Maputo, Republic of Mozambique, intended to develop a FFEW strategy on the Zambezi river basin. The meeting was the first step of the project implementation. The next stages will be: (1) National consultations; (2) Meetings of riparian hydrometeorological and disaster management organizations within the whole basin; (3) Implementation of a demonstration project on flood forecasting system; and (4) Analysis, recommendation and proposal for the FFEW strategy within the basin.
One of the main objectives of the meeting was to bring together the Governments of the Zambezi river basin’s riparian countries and other interested parties. All the countries of the Zambezi river basin, but the Republic of Angola and the United Republic of Tanzania, sent delegations to the meeting. It was emphasized that the importance of good relation between the NMSs and the NHSs is paramount for the success of the endeavour.
An interesting presentation, called Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) was expounded by Mr. Eliot Christian, on behalf of WMO. This protocol is an open standard data interchange format that can be used to gather any kind of warning and information at local, regional and national levels and to input them into an eclectic assortment of dissemination systems. The lack of coordination among the different modus operandi and technologies of warning systems hodge-podge in the world is, perhaps, the main reason of developing a tool like CAP. Presently, the existing systems in some countries are limited by both their technological legacies and their organizational mandates. It seems that such is, to some extent, the case of the Zambezi river basin countries.
During the meeting, it was informed by Dr. Sezin Tokar, from USAID, that WMO and OFDA are implementing the Global FFGS (GFFGS), whose objectives are to provide early warning of potential flash floods, to reinforce the capacity of NMSs and NHSs, to booster transboundary collaboration, and to amend the community awareness of flash flood calamities in order to take preventive actions.
The main constraints in implementing WIGOS Pilot Project seem to be:
1) The up-to-now absence of Angola and Tanzania in the discussions might, to some extent, restrict the comprehensiveness of the strategy to be accomplished within the Zambezi river basin as a whole.
2) The Zambezi Watercourse Commission (ZAMCOM) was not yet fully established, due to the fact that the required number of countries to ratify the Agreement have not yet signed it.
3) Shortage of adequately trained staff in flood forecasting, lack of formal data sharing policy and protocols, poor rainfall forecast accuracy, transmission problems, malfunctioning devices, vandalism and theft of equipment, outdated instrumentation and obsolete forecasting methods are the main restrictions pointed out by some members.
The establishment of an Interim ZAMCOM secretariat is expected to take place in a short time.
Experts from NMSs, NHSs and DMA from Zambia, Malawi, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Mozambique, along with other regional experts, agreed on WMO proposal to develop WIGOS/WIS pilot project in Southern Africa, and supported CHy-AWG proposal to use SADC-HYCOS and SARFFG projects as pilot project.
Noting that flash flood forecasting needs collaboration between meteorologists, hydrologists and disaster managers, intensive workshops between NMHSs and DMCs will be necessary to occur, in order to identify the necessary products for disaster managers and how they must be packaged and sent. Training workshops with forecasters and DMCs must be carried out, aiming at familiarizing themselves with the products and at developing the indispensable operational procedures.
The development of the pilot project will take the following issues into account: to identify data links among participating centers; to standardize equipment, data format, data processing and data transmission; to search for possible existing Zambezi Water Information System (ZAMWIS) in order to prevent duplication, if applicable; to introduce FFGS products which are time sensitive as part of WIS, and distributed them to NMHSs for further dissemination; to exchange experiences to improve communication and dissemination of data and information; to improve forecasting skills; to preserve skilled personnel; to acquire updated forecasting tools and to expand the data collection network.
The crucial chalanges are: to promote building capacity aimed at adequate flood forecasting skills; to quantify the flood events; to develop formal agreements on exchange of flood related information among the States that share the basin; to access satellite based rainfall estimates; to develop adequate real time network and data; to pursuit hydrological information about upstream and downstream flood events; to acquire temporal/spatial flood forecasting models; to reduce labour migration of highly skilled personnel; to reduce vandalism and theft of equipment and to preserve the rainfall and the stream gauge stations.
It is necessary to educate local people aiming at reducing damage and stealing of equipment, to identify data links among the countries of the Zambezi river basin, to improve forecasting skills, to acquire up-to-date forecasting tools, to standardize of formats, processing and transmission of data, and, last but not least, to distribute FFGS’ time sensitive products to the NMHSs of the Zambezi river basin.
Some outcomes of the X Meeting of the Working Group on Hydrology and Water Resources of RA III
In March 2010, I participated in the tenth meeting of the Working Group on Hydrology and Water Resources of RA III (South America), held in Santiago, Republic of Chile. All the Iberian-American countries of South America, with the exception of the Republic of Paraguay, took part in the meeting.
Analysis on hydrological impacts of El Niño/La Niña, legislation and current norms on water resources management, participation of the regional NMHSs on water resources management and the hydrological network of South America were accordingly discussed.
After discussing the Questionnaire on Professional Capacity Building on Hydrology and Water Resources, a voting process followed. The chosen themes were (1) Streamflow gauging and hydrometric stations, including modern techniques of measurement; (2)Instruments and methods for hydrological observation, highlighting remote sensing in Hydrology and (3) Operational hydrologic prediction techniques.
It was agreed that the main issues to be developed during the mandate are the following:
(1) Hydrologic networks, including groundwater, quantity and quality. Standards, fulfillment of standards, INFOHYDRO, data management, capacity analysis, UNESCO/WMO Manual.
(1.a) Inventory. Codification of gauging stations. Several network types (including remote sensing). Needs of information, data processing and network assessment. Network re-design. Contribution of the glaciers to water resources. (2 years).
1.b)Methodologies for the generation of information. Quality control. Stations security. Uncertainty. Databank. Stage-Discharge relationship and other methods. (3 years).
1.c)Transboundary basins. Identification of the basins. Identification of the networks within such basins. Methodologies, standards and laboratories utilized. Symmetry of the information. (2 years).
(2) Flash Floods. Continuation of synoptic systems. Planning document preparation. Establishment of a working subgroup on the theme. Coordination with the CHy and the WMO’s initiative on flood forecast. Continuation at WMO’s Executive Council. Cooperation with PROHIMET and UNESCO. (2 years).
(3) Hydroclimatologic predictions. Hydrologic extremes (cooperation with meteorological and hydrological services; cooperation with CIIFEN). (2 years).
(4) Present climate (climate change). (Continue).
(5) Website. Information and Communication Technology. Keep on maintaining the website updated. Take into account the requests that have not been analyzed by the Group Mandate. (Continue).
(6) Professional capacity building. Keep going with the activities related with professional capacity building and HOMS. (Continue).
(7) Optimization of the internet existing information. Use of simple search tools for different themes. (Continue).
(8) Integrated flood management. Courses. Projects. Hold on the cooperation with UNESCO. (Continue).
(9) Standard project flood. Confection of a conceptual document with recommendation for a possible preparation of a manual. Cooperation with CHy. Statistical value. Hydrologic, social and economic aspects. (3 years).
Antonio Cardoso Neto
Brasilia, 18th May 2010