Africa Hydromet Forum: Improving climate and weather forecasting to build disaster resilience
There is no doubt that extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and severity. In Africa alone, 90% of all disasters in recent decades have been driven by weather and climate. While we cannot stop them from striking, we can tell people about them, managing the risk that they present – by advancing our work in hydromet. Hydromet is the union of hydrology and meteorology, combining water, weather, and climate studies as a formidable force in a government’s ability to accurately understand, forecast, and communicate storms and hazards. This means that something as simple as an accurate weather forecast, or the monitoring of river levels could make the difference between a farmer losing his/her entire crop or a fisherman knowing when best to head out to sea. Because of the lack of high-quality hydromet services, countries suffer GDP losses every year from flooding, cyclones, and other storms. Madagascar and Nigeria, for example, each lost more than 1 percent of GDP in a single year from storms.
photo credit: Rod Waddington