Improving climate and weather forecasting to build disaster resilience

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, and manage 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 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.

Since cities are especially vulnerable to climate hazards, hydromet plays an important role in city planning. Rapid urbanization can harm long-term growth of cities, while climate variability changes rain and flooding cycles. All this hurts the ability of cities to plan ahead. But high-quality hydromet services and information can help manage – for example – urban flooding, protecting both people and assets.

Hydromet services can not only avert potential future damages and loss of life, but also help cities and communities flourish with greater resilience today:

• Improved hydromet services enhance productivity and contribute to shared growth across a range of sectors. World Bank research has shown that investment in hydromet services has a 1:7 return on investment.
• Hydromet data are necessary for daily activities, for everyone from families to community groups to city officials. Businesses use long-term information to make effective climate-related decisions that affect their industries. Government agencies use hydromet services to effectively tackle climate issues and implement smart planning to boost productivity and protect vital infrastructure. Families can better manage jobs, travel, food storage, and other activities.
• Hydromet services boost economic growth, and are a key component of sustainable development.

The World Bank has worked as a partner with other agencies, including the Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction (GFDRR), to improve the hydromet capacity of countries around the world: boosting agency capacity, strengthening institutions, improving policy and last-mile service delivery, and better integrating national, regional, and international hydromet services. Recently, they were joined by the African Union Commission, World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and other partners in organizing the first African Ministerial Conference on Meteorology – Africa Hydromet Forum, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from September 12 to 15. The Forum united African leaders in their quest to achieve climate and disaster resilience, from rapidly growing urban cores to savannah farmlands, as part of their countries’ journey towards sustainable development.

This Forum was just one step in a larger effort to improved hydromet services across the globe. Even simple, daily usages of hydromet tools can boost economies and save lives.

This post was originally published on the World Bank blog. You can read it here.

Ede Ijjasz-Vasquez is the Senior Director for the World Bank Group’s Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience Global Practice. In this position, Mr. Ijjasz-Vasquez leads a team of over 600 technical experts deployed across the world, leveraging global knowledge and collaborating with partners to help tackle the world’s most complex development challenges. Previously, he was Director for Sustainable Development of the Latin America and Caribbean Region, covering infrastructure, environment and climate change, social development, agriculture and rural development, disaster risk management, and urban development with an active portfolio of about $17 billion. From 2007 to 2011, he was based in Beijing, where he managed the Sustainable Development Unit for China and Mongolia. Mr. Ijjasz has a Ph.D. and a M.Sc. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in civil and environmental engineering, with specialization in hydrology and water resources. He has been a lecturer at the Environmental Science and Policy Program at Johns Hopkins University, and at Tsinghua University. He is a Colombian and Hungarian national.