As Malawi reels from devastating floods, UN food agency delivers vital supplies

 UN, 23 February 2015 – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has announced the delivery of a first round of emergency supplies to more than 288,000 people in flood-affected Malawi, providing much needed relief amid continuing rains.

The UN food agency explained in a press release that it had distributed more than 2,700 metric tons of food to 12 districts late last week and delivered more than 200 metric tons of relief items by air to thousands of people cut-off by flood waters.

Incessant rains have severely affected the African country as flood waters have destroyed roads and rendered some areas entirely inaccessible by land.

Malawi is regularly hit by floods and droughts, requiring emergency responses of varying size each year. This year, flooding has caused displacement of over 170,000 people, while an estimated 116,000 households have lost their crops and livestock. In Nsanje district alone, 79 people are confirmed dead with another 153 people still missing.

Moreover, this year’s rains have come ahead of their usual schedule, repeatedly bursting the banks along the Shire and Ruo rivers, and warnings of flash floods remain in place, with more rain forecast for the country's North. With 86 per cent of the population living in rural areas and engaged in farming and livestock rearing, long-term watershed management infrastructures are urgently needed so that even intense flooding is less damaging than this year.

In addition, the press release noted, WFP is currently participating in a joint rapid food security assessment “in order to understand the latest needs on the ground and the required duration of the emergency response” while also providing recommendations on the duration of the ongoing lean season food insecurity response which has already identified nearly 700,000 people in need of food assistance.

Despite the United Nations’ intensive efforts to reach those affected by the devastating flood waters, the WFP continues to face a funding gap of $3.3 million to cover the outstanding food requirements and logistics services to support the entire humanitarian community.
  [un.org]
23/2/15
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Related:

• Floods claim 158 lives in Mozambique (official)

• 60 morts dans des inondations au Malawi et au Mozambique ...

• Malawi floods kill 176 people ..

• Thousands of Malawian flood victims unable to receive aid (Doctors without Borders)

Sunken Brazilian town revealed amid 80-year drought

A buried Brazil city has miraculously re-emerged from the depths of the Jaguari River.

The city of Igarata was submerged by the river's rising waters in 1969 after the Brazilian government built a dam on the Jaguari river.
For almost 46 years the old city has been hidden from human sight. However, a long period of drought that has struck the country resulted in much lower water levels in the river.

The Jaguari river has reportedly dried up to 100 feet below its previous levels. So far, old buildings of the "lost" city together with benches and trees have started reappearing on its surface.

Local media sources report that the city's structure has remained unchanged and its school and a church as well as the main street are still recognizable, although they have been submerged for nearly half a century.

Some of its former residents returned to the site to take a look at the city they have not seen nearly half a century. Many of them said they had mixed feelings regarding the event. Happiness caused by the reappearance of the city was overshadowed by concerns over the severe drought that has hit the state: the lack of rainfall has resulted in water shortages across the country and prompted local officials to consider imposing water rationing measures.

San Paolo, South America's most populous city, is among those most badly affected by the natural disaster.
[sputniknews.com]
8/2/15
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Related:

• Brazilian Ministers End Emergency Meeting on Worst Drought in 80 Years

• En medio de la peor sequía que se recuerda Brasil desperdicia el 37% del agua potable...

• Brazil's Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira has said the country's three most populous states are experiencing their worst drought since 1930... 

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CA Officials Allowed Fracking to Taint Drinking Water Amid Record Drought

Oil companies in drought-ravaged California are pumping wastewater from their operations into aquifers, potentially contaminating groundwater supplies that have become increasingly important...

State regulators permitted companies to drill hundreds of waste-disposal wells into aquifers that store water for drinking or irrigation, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Companies injected a blend of briny water, hydrocarbons and trace chemicals.

Most of the wells are located in the state’s Central Valley, where residents are pumping so much groundwater to cope with the historic drought that the land has started to sink.

“It is an unfolding catastrophe, and it’s essential that all oil and gas wastewater injection into underground drinking water stop immediately,” said Kassie Siegel, director of the Climate Law Institute at the Center for Biological Diversity environmental group.

So far, tests of nearby drinking-water wells show no contamination, state officials said. But the federal Environmental Protection Agency is still threatening to take control of monitoring the waste-injection wells after more than 30 years of state management.

“If there are wells having a direct impact on drinking water, we need to shut them down now,” said Jared Blumenfeld, regional administrator for the EPA. “Safe drinking water is only going to become more in demand.”

The problem dates back to 1983, when the EPA gave state regulators responsibility for enforcing the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. The agreement listed aquifers considered exempt, where oil companies could legally inject leftover water.

But there were two signed copies of the agreement, which led to oil companies injecting wastewater into aquifers that were supposed to be off-limits, the Chronicle reported.

The EPA first suspected the problem in 2011, and last summer state officials shut down 11 waste-injection wells that they feared could taint groundwater supplies already feeding homes and farms.

In 2010, cherry trees on Mike Hopkins San Joaquin Valley orchard starting turning brown, a problem that spread the next year.

Tests of the water revealed high levels of salt and boron, both of which can damage trees. Hopkins blames oil companies for tainting the aquifer that used to feed his orchard, and sued four companies that had been injecting wastewater nearby.

In another sign of California's persistent drought, downtown San Francisco recorded no measurable rain in January for the first time in 165 years, the National Weather Service said.

The agency also said Santa Cruz recorded no rain in January for the first time since 1893. Normal rainfall for that city in January is more than 6 inches.

For the Bay Area as a whole, last month was the driest January on record, the weather service said. December brought decent rain to Southern and Northern California, raising hopes for a wet winter, but January turned out to be dry and unusually warm.
sputniknews.com
3/2/15
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• NASA Satellite Images Reveal Shocking Groundwater Loss in Drought-Stricken California

• California Experiencing Most Severe Drought Ever Recorded

•  ***fracking

21st century ‘hottest’ on record as global warming continues, UN agency warns

UN, 2 February 2015 – Devastating weather patterns and increasing temperatures will last into the foreseeable future as global warming is expected to continue, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed today as it explained that 2014’s ranking as the “hottest year on record” is part of a larger climate trend.

“The overall warming trend is more important than the ranking of an individual year,” WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud clarified today in a press release. “Analysis of the datasets indicates that 2014 was nominally the warmest on record, although there is very little difference between the three hottest years.”

High sea temperatures, the UN agency has said, have contributed to exceptionally heavy rainfall and floods in many countries and extreme drought in others. Twelve major Atlantic storms battered the United Kingdom in early months of 2014, while floods devastated much of the Balkans throughout May. The monthly precipitation over the Pacific side of western Japan for August 2014, meanwhile, was 301 per cent above normal – the highest since area-averaged statistics began in 1946.

At the same time, crippling droughts have struck large swathes of the continental United States while Northeast China and parts of the Yellow River basin did not reach half of the summer average, causing severe drought.

The diverse climate impact which afflicted nations around the planet throughout 2014 were, in fact, consistent with the expectation of a changing climate, Mr. Jarraud continued.
In addition, he warned that 14 of the 15 hottest years recorded have all been in the 21st century, adding the UN agency’s expectation that global warming would continue “given that rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the increasing heat content of the oceans are committing us to a warmer future.”

Around 93 per cent of the excess energy trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases from fossil fuels and other human activities ends up in the oceans, the WMO press release noted, as it pointed out that global sea-surface temperatures had reached “record levels” in 2014, even in the absence of a “fully developed El Niño” weather pattern. 

High temperatures in 1998 – the hottest year before the 21st century – occurred during a strong El Niño year.

The WMO has released its latest findings regarding its global temperature analysis in advance of climate change negotiations scheduled to be held in Geneva from 8 to 13 February. 

These talks are expected to help pave the way towards the December 2015 conference scheduled in Paris, France, where a new universal UN-backed treaty on climate change will be adopted.
  [un.org]
2/2/15

Brazilian Ministers End Emergency Meeting on Worst Drought in 80 Years

Brazilian ministers end an emergency meeting at the capital’s presidential palace, following a water crisis that began in the most populous state of Sao Paulo, causing the worst drought seen in the south east region, in the last 80 years, the BBC reported Saturday.

“Since records for Brazil's south-eastern region began 84 years ago we have never seen such a delicate and worrying situation,” the country's Environment Minister, Izabella Teixeira, was quoted as saying by the news outlet, following the emergency meeting in Brasilia.

Teixeira warned that the state of Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais, the second most populous state, and the city of Rio de Janeiro, must save water.

Rising temperatures and inadequate waterfall have led to power cuts and water rationing affecting millions of people in Sao Paulo. Agriculture has also been negatively impacted by the drought. Growers of Arabica coffee, a key export commodity for Brazil, said rain in 2014 was half the usual levels, which saw production fall by 16.1 percent in that year, according to Brazil’s official Conab crop bureau.

Meanwhile, Sao Paulo's Governor Geraldo Alckmin, has began imposing charges on high levels on water consumption and offering discounts to those who reduced water use, as well as limiting the amount of water consumed by industries and farmers from rivers, as reported by the BBC.
[sputniknews.com]
24/1/15
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• En medio de la peor sequía que se recuerda Brasil desperdicia el 37% del agua potable...

Thousands Flee Homes As Wildfires Rage Across South Australia (global warming is making the wildfires worse and more frequent)

Thousands have fled their homes, as several major wildfires are raging across Southern Australia in what officials are calling the worst fires since 1983, the Guardian reports.
Up to 2,000 firefighters are battling the blaze, with more than a dozen aircraft dumping water onto the fires. Firefighters are struggling and said it could take “days to get the situation under control”. Dry conditions, temperatures as high as 40C, and ghastly winds fanning the flames are aggravating the already grave situation, the Guardian said.

Residents in Adelaide Hills, South Australia, are experiencing the worst of the fires, where flames have destroyed five homes and put hundreds of others in danger, said Daniel Hamilton, a spokesperson for South Australia Country Fire Service, the Guardian reported.

Residents of 19 other communities are also at risk, as a predicted shift in the winds later on Saturday could further intensify the flames. The state has declared a major emergency and told residents to leave, as their lives were at risk.

“If you have decided to stay the fire could become incredibly scary and it could make you change your mind and leave. It could be a catastrophic decision to leave late.” – said South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill.

Although Australia faces wildfires every year, this year has seen the outbreak of the largest bushfires in the state of South Australia since 1983. Environmentalists say global warming is making the wildfires worse and more frequent, the BBC said........................http://sputniknews.com/asia/20150103/1016488675.html3/1/15
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Related:

• Incendies de brousse hors de contrôle dans le sud de l'Australie ...

• Εκατοντάδες πυροσβέστες βοηθούμενοι από αεροσκάφη και δεκάδες πυροσβεστικά οχήματα, δίνουν μάχη με τις φλόγες σε πολλά πύρινα μέτωπα στις πολιτείες της Βικτόριας και της Νότιας Αυστραλίας...

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2013

• 'Catastrophic': Hundreds of wildfires rage in Australia amid record heat wave (VIDEO, PHOTOS RT)

• Australia experiences its hottest two years on record

Earth to face unprecedented heatwave in 2015

NASA experts believe that in 2015, planet Earth will have to deal with an unprecedented heatwave. The forecast is based on temperature trends of recent years.

Since the start of permanent climate observations in 1880, the frequency of temperature anomalies has been growing. Occurrences of high average temperatures follow each other: in 1995, 1997, 1998, 2005 and 2010.
This September, average global temperature was 15.7 degrees Celsius, which is a new record for the past 135 years. During the first nine months of this year, average global temperature made up 14.7 degrees Celsius.

NASA experts say that the current year can be regarded the hottest since 1998. However, in the summer of 2015, different regions of the world will experience an unprecedented heatwave and drought, Rosbalt reports. 
Source: Pravda.Ru
30/10/14
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Related:

• 2014-15: Ο πιο ψυχρός χειμώνας της τελευταίας δεκαετίας

• Weather forecasts predict colder winter in Europe this year

• Climate catastrophe? Weather anomalies to double in 20 years – expert

Lake shrinks by third. (The sharp fall of the lake's water level will affect shipping and fishing as well as nearby residents' water supply)

China's largest freshwater lake, Poyang, has shrunk by one third over the last three days due to a reduced water supply from the Yangtze River and little rainfall.

At 8 am Wednesday, the lake's surface area was 1,490 square kilometers, a reduction of 679 square kilometers compared with 2,169 square kilometers on Monday, said the Jiangxi Provincial Hydrological Bureau on Wednesday. 

The water level at the Xingzi hydrological station was 11.99 meters at 4 pm Wednesday, 2.13 meters lower than the average level recorded in recent years. The water level is falling by 30 centimeters every day.

The two major causes for the lake shrinking were the reduced water supply from the upper Yangtze River due to the construction of dams and sparse rainfall over the past month in Jiangxi, said the bureau.

The precipitation was less than 5 millimeters since September 20 in Jiangxi Province.

The lake's flood season began on April 30 and lasted until October 18.

This year's flood period was 33 days longer than last year's.

The sharp fall of the lake's water level will affect shipping and fishing as well as nearby residents' water supply.  
Sources : Xinhua - globaltimes.cn
22- 23/10/14
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• In fight against hunger, UN launches initiative targeting threat of desertification

• En 2040 no habrá agua suficiente para la población mundial (si seguimos haciendo lo que hacemos hoy)

NASA Satellite Images Reveal Shocking Groundwater Loss in Drought-Stricken California

NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) program has released a series of satellite images, taken in June 2002, June 2008 and June of this year, showing the  stunning groundwater loss in California which is in its third year of record drought.... 

“This trio of images depicts satellite observations of declining water storage in California as seen by NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites,” says NASA. “Colors progressing from green to orange to red represent greater accumulated water loss between April 2002 and June 2014.”

The prolonged drought has impacted everything from agriculture to fisheries to residential use, worsened and prolonged the wildfire season and created conflicts over the use of water resources.
That has included calls for banning water-intensive fracking and disputes over the diversion of river water for the state’s even more water-intensive agriculture sector, primarily in its fertile Central Valley.

“California’s Sacramento and San Joaquin River basins, including the Central Valley, have suffered the greatest losses, in part due to increased groundwater pumping to support agricultural production,” said NASA. “Between 2011 and 2014, the combined river basins have lost 4 trillion gallons of water each year, an amount far greater than California’s 38 million residents use in cities and homes annually.”

Gov. Brown declared a state of emergency in January after the state had its lowest recorded rainfall in its history.

*** GRACE is a collaborative endeavor involving the Center for Space Research at the University of Texas, Austin; NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; the German Space Agency and Germany’s National Research Center for Geosciences, Potsdam.

Anastasia Pantsios | October 3, 2014
ecowatch.com
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Related:

• NASA Photographs Show Eastern Basin of Aral Sea Totally Dried 

• Premios Nobel preocupados por "estado catastrófico" del planeta...

• California Experiencing Most Severe Drought Ever Recorded

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• California Wildfires Destroy Homes

NASA Photographs Show Eastern Basin of Aral Sea Totally Dried

New NASA photographs taken by satellite show Central Asia' once-vibrant Aral Sea shrinking to levels possibly not seen in centuries.
The images taken in August by the Terra satellite show that the sea's eastern basin, on the border of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, completely empty, the first time in modern times, said Philip Micklin, a well-known geographer and professor emeritus of Western Michigan University and an Aral Sea expert.

"And it is likely the first time it has completely dried in 600 years, since medieval desiccation associated with diversion of the Amu Darya [river] to the Caspian Sea," he told NASA.
By some accounts, the destruction of the sea is considered one of the world's worst environmental catastrophes.

• Once the fourth largest sea in the world, the Aral has been shrinking since the 1960s when the Soviet Union undertook a major irrigation project to supply the arid plains of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. 

The region's two main rivers — the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya — were tapped to irrigate water-intensive crops like cotton and others in the arid Central Asian desert.

The desert bloomed in many places, but at the expense of the lake, which has shriveled, destroying ecosystems, decimating a vibrant fishing industry and leaving dozens of communities suffering from poverty and environmentally-induced disease.
Micklin said lower rain and snow fall in the mountains to the east this year  considerably reduced the flow into the Amu Darya feeding the lake.
Uzbekistan continues to use the river for its economically-important cotton industry.
As the water receded, the sea has split into two separate sections: the North, or Small, Aral Sea, located within Kazakhstan; and the South, or Large, Aral Sea. The latter split into western and eastern basins.

• “As the lake dried up, fisheries and the communities that depended on them collapsed,” NASA noted in its statement that accompanied the publication of photographs. “The increasingly salty water became polluted with fertilizer and pesticides. Blowing dust from the exposed lakebed, contaminated with agricultural chemicals, became a public health hazard.”

The continual loss of water has also contributed to a change in the regional climate, making winters colder and summers hotter and drier, the statement said.

The photos of the drying lake were taken in August of this year by NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite.
In an effort to save the lake, in 2005 a World Bank-funded dam was built in Kazakhstan, which has helped to partially restore the northern section, albeit at a fraction of its former size and volume.
http://www.voanews.com/content/nasa-photographs-show-eastern-basin-of-aral-sea-totally-dried/2471680.html
3/10/14
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Prolonged Drought Plagues Oklahoma Farmers

ALTUS, OKLAHOMA— Parts of western Texas and southwestern Oklahoma have been in drought conditions for several years running and the deficit in rainfall has taken a heavy toll on cotton and grain production...

Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin said the state has suffered $2 billion in agricultural losses since 2011. There has been rain in recent weeks, but for most farmers it is too late.
Sometimes the rain falls hard now, but it was really needed several weeks ago when crops were at a critical stage of growth.

Farmer Matt Muller said his part of Oklahoma has been without sufficient rainfall for some time.
 “We were doing quite well farming until about 2010, the fall of 2010, when it basically stopped raining and for the past four years we have been in continuous drought,” said Muller.
A cool, wet spring and early summer this year gave Muller and other area farmers some hope.
“Things looked phenomenal because of the mild temperatures and the showers we were able to catch, but then August first it is like a blowtorch showed up,” said Muller.
High temperatures and lack of rain doomed most crops, but Muller said the drought-resistant Mung beans he planted did well.
“When it started raining, we jumped in and tried that crop and it was able to beat the heat of August and finish out and make a decent crop before it burned up in August,” he said.
Such drought-tolerant alternative crops and the use of irrigation where aquifers are not depleted help farmers get by, but yields on big-money crops like cotton are low.
Cotton farmer Clint Abernathy has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in machinery, like a cotton picker, but production in the past few years has fallen short of expectations.
“This year we did have enough rain in June and July to grow a crop that looks better and it is better, but this is ground where we normally would want to make three-bale an acre plus on and right now we are looking at a half to three-quarter of a bale cotton crop,” said Abernathy.
He said before the drought he produced much bigger plants with many more bolls of cotton. Crop insurance has helped, but Abernathy said what farmers really need is more water and better prices for what they produce.
“Even with crop insurance we are going downhill. Our insurance yield keeps going down every year. Prices on all commodities, except livestock, just keep going down,” said Abernathy.
Livestock prices dipped a few years ago when drought drove many ranchers to sell off herds, but few farmers in this area have anything to sell now. The less money they have to spend, the less money circulates in the local economy.
So farmers here in southwestern Oklahoma are hoping for next year will be a better year.    
voanews.com
22/9/14
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Related:

• California Experiencing Most Severe Drought Ever Recorded

California Experiencing Most Severe Drought Ever Recorded

One of the worst North American droughts in history could be getting a whole lot worse. According to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor Map released on Tuesday, more than 58 percent of California is in an “exceptional drought” stage. That’s up a staggering 22 percent from last week’s report. And, in its latest drought report released earlier today, the National Drought Mitigation Center warned that “bone-dry” conditions are overtaking much of the Golden State, and noted that, overall, California is “short more than one year’s worth of reservoir water, or 11.6 million acre-feet, for this time of year.”

All across California, streams are drying up, crops are dying off and local communities are struggling to maintain access to water, thanks to 3 years of persistent drought conditions. 
The situation is so dire that on Tuesday, California implemented state-wide emergency water-conservation measures, in an effort preserved what remaining water there is. Under the new measures, Californians can face fines of up to $500 per day for using hoses to clean sidewalks, run decorative fountains, and other water-guzzling activities.
Unfortunately, while the situation in California is already pretty bleak, it looks like things are only going to get worse. In fact, it’s possible that all of the American southwest could soon be seeing the devastating drought conditions that Californians are facing. That’s because the largest surge of heat ever recorded moving west to east in the Pacific Ocean, often referred to as a Kelvin Wave, which was supposed to start an El Nino and bring tropical-like rains to the West Coast and southwest, just dissipated, after it was absorbed by abnormally warm ocean waters.

An El Nino is marked by the prolonged warming of Pacific Ocean surface temperatures, when compared to the average temperature. El Ninos usually happen every two to seven years, and can last anywhere between nine months and two years. As warm water spreads from the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean to the eastern Pacific, it brings rain and moisture with it, bringing rain to California and the American Southwest. 
So, during an El Nino period, winters are often a lot wetter than usual in the southwest U.S., including in central and southern California, where drought conditions are currently the worst. That’s why Californians were hoping for a strong El Nino period, to bring the rains and moisture that’s needed to help ease the drought.

Unfortunately, while some weather models are still predicting that an El Nino is possible, the chances of an El Nino strong enough to break the devastating drought that California is seeing are now very, very slim. As a result, there’s probably no end in sight to the current drought conditions in California. And, since warm ocean waters that bring rain are moving farther north up the Pacific, while Oregon and Washington and Alaska will get rain, the jet stream is set to extend drought-like conditions to much of the southwest.......................................ecowatch.com
1/8/14

UN initiative strengthens drought monitoring and early warning in Asia-Pacific

UN, 1 July 2014 – Although drought is a “silent killer” in Asia and the Pacific, access to scientific information and knowledge remain a challenge for many countries in the region, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) said today at a milestone forum on drought monitoring and early warning.
“Over the past three decades, it is estimated that droughts in the region have affected more than 1.3 billion people and caused damages of over $53 billion,” Shamika Sirimanne, Director of ESCAP’s Information and Communications Technology and Disaster Risk Reduction Division, said today in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

The meeting, organized by ESCAP and the Sri Lanka Ministry of Technology and Research, drew senior Government representatives, regional experts and UN agencies to exchange good practices and discuss strategies to reduce the impacts of agricultural drought and help save lives.
Ms. Sirimanne emphasized that efforts to reduce the impacts of drought require timely access to satellite-derived data. “Signs of drought can be observed from space long before they are visible to the human eye. Advances in space technology allow us to monitor the condition of crops, or the availability of water, from satellite images, and sharing this information through regional cooperation will save lives and protect livelihoods.”
However, despite significant progress in monitoring agricultural drought, access to satellite-derived data and knowledge for improving early warning remains a challenge for many countries in Asia and the Pacific.
In 2013, ESCAP launched the Regional Drought Mechanism – a platform providing timely and free satellite-based data; products; and training to regional drought-prone countries – to enhance the capacity of Governments for agricultural monitoring and early warning. When combined with information collected on the ground, the data leads to more effective detection of potential drought conditions.
“For example, satellite images can detect the onset of drought in specific areas or provinces, allowing time for local authorities to take immediate action, such as informing farmers to switch to more drought-resistant crops or implementing water management strategies,” Ms. Sirimanne elaborated.
The Sri Lankan Minister of Technology and Research, Patali Champika Ranawaka warned, “This year may witness the beginning of another El Niño period affecting Sri Lanka – possibly with serious implications for agriculture, one of the most important sectors for the country.”
“We have great hope that ESCAP’s Regional Drought Mechanism will help Sri Lanka address this issue by expanding our options for monitoring and responding to agricultural drought, in the meantime effectively harnessing the potential of space technology applications towards this end,” he added
Currently, the Mechanism is being piloted in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Its initial work in Mongolia and Sri Lanka – supported by two regional service nodes – demonstrates clearly the efficiency and effectiveness of the initiative.
Supported by China and India, the regional service nodes were established under the Regional Drought Mechanism to provide the pilot countries with satellite imagery, services, expert training and capacity development.
Though several of the pilot countries already experience severe drought conditions due to regular climate oscillations, including El Niño and La Niña, climate change projections indicate that drought is likely to become more frequent and severe in the future.
Given these challenges, forum participants recognized the importance of coordination and cooperation across the relevant ministries and initiatives in the region and looked at practical ways to improve early warning through enhanced integration with climate change trends, and new scientific modelling techniques.
Recommendations from the forum will provide guidance for strengthening the effectiveness of the Regional Cooperative Mechanism and will feed into the national disaster management plans of the pilot countries.
Participating countries benefit from: enhanced access to space-based data; capacity building in preparedness and response; strengthened institutional coordination and policies at the country level; and Regional and South-South cooperation and support networks.
[un.org]
1/7/14
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