Building Resilience to High-Impact Hydro-Meteorological Events through Strengthening Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and South East Asia

Strengthened national and regional disaster risk management and early warning mechanisms with increased engagement and recognition of the NMHSs in them, enabling enhanced access to risk information for priority decisions and to effective, tailored early warning services by selected stakeholders in high-risk contexts in selected high-risk countries 

Enhanced development of, and access to regional and global hydrometeorological data, products and services, and their utilization by the NMHSs of the beneficiary countries to support the development of impact-based forecasts and risk-informed warnings for/of severe weather, flash floods and riverine floods, as part of the national MHEWS, including strengthened (operational) support systems from relevant regional institutions, with global support as necessary, to provide capacity development, surrogate risk information and early warning services and decision support on a regional basis.

Strengthened NMHSs' capacities for the provision of hydrometeorological products and delivery of respective services, especially impact-based forecasts and risk-informed warnings to support national MHEWS stakeholders in their decision making.

• Two week Severe Weather Forecasting Demonstration Project (SWFDP) Training Desk at Regional Forecast Support Centre (RFSC) in Hanoi, Vietnam, March 2018 briging together NMHSs, and NDMOs
• Two week SWFDP training desk at RFSC in Hanoi, Vietnam in May 2018 to develop the capacity of the RFSC and improved its ability to provide regional severe weather forecasts guidance to the NMHSs
• SWFDP-Southeast Asia Training Workshop in, Vientiane, Lao PDR in February 2019. The Workshop developed and improved technicians' capacity to produce severe weather forecasting products and early warning services for users and local communities
• An EC Chart licence has been implemented for Lao PDR for the supply of European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts products
• Successful development of a CAP e-learning platform, including a WMO Moodle platform, course evaluation, feedback and tracking mechanism, whereby the course community can interact and share information about CAP
• Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (RIMES) conducted an assessment of the status of MHEWS in the region. The sub-project provides an update on the capacities of countries in the region to produce and disseminate early warnings, and identifies gaps and needs that the project could address and meet
• The development and implementation of the Southeast Asia Flash Flood Guidance System (SeAFFGS) is underway. In order to obtain necessary data from participating countries, WMO representatives, together with SeAFFGS developer Hydrologic Research Center’s (HRC) representatives, organized the Initial Data Acquisition Countries Visit from 30 September to 11 October 2019 to Lao People's Democratic Republic, Viet Nam, Thailand, Cambodia and Mekong River Commission’s headquarters in Cambodia. The country visits were a success and experts were able to collect the necessary data to input into the system
• Forecasters and radar data experts from the beneficiary countries participated in training at Hydrological Research Centre (HRC) for Radar QA/QC Radar Hydrology in December 2019. The training provided background information and hands-on training on methods for analysing and adjusting real-time radar precipitation data to provide quantitative input and to operational hydrologic and flash flood forecasting in the SeAFFGS

• Completion of National Strategic Plan (NSP) for Fiji
• Implementation of Fiji FFGS and RADAR data training
• Development of an off-shore wave and coastal inundation forecasting system with respective risk information and warning services in Kiribati and Tuvalu 
• Regional Workshop to initiate impact-based forecasting and implement WMO strategy for service delivery in Solomon Islands 

• Detailed assessment of national capabilities in flood forecasting and warnings carried out in Dominican Republic with the support of an assessment tool developed by the Commission of Hydrology 
• A workshop was conducted in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic with the participation of national institutions including ONAMET, INDRHI, SGN, COE, Proteccion Civil and Cruz Roja to present the results of the assessment and to exchange on next steps for strengthening the national capabilities on flood forecasting and warning
• Development of an Integrated Riverine Flood Forecasting (IRFF) system is underway, which will take advantage of products from existing systems/initiatives such as, Severe Weather Forecasting Programme (SWFP), Flash Flood Guidance System (FFGS), Coastal Inundation Forecasting Initiative (CIFI), Streamflow Prediction Tool (SPT-GEO). A co-designed training programme for IRFF is included
• A webinar was held on 8th July 2020 to present the IRFF strategy and progress. It was attended by representatives from the national hydrological and meteorological services of the region, experts from international organizations and relevant stakeholders engaged in the project