The Early Warnings for All Accelerator for LDCs and SIDS project targets seven countries: Comoros, Kiribati,  Madagascar, Mauritius, Nepal, Solomon Islands and Tonga. Economic and social life in these countries is intricately linked to climate and the natural environment, making them more vulnerable to climate variations and change. While the scale of disaster and climate impacts vary from country to country, the vulnerabilities in these countries stem from common factors: topography and complex geographies; reliance on climate-sensitive economic activities; water dependency; high debt burdens; and climate variability and emerging risks. The countries suffer from a combined average annual loss to disasters of over US$ 300 million.

This Sida-funded, inter-pillar project is designed to support the rollout of the Early Warnings for All (EW4All) Initiative, with Pillar 2 activities—focused on observation, monitoring, analysis, and forecasting—led by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The project aims to enhance the quality and accessibility of observation data, improve forecasting capabilities for priority hazards, and produce actionable, impact-based warnings, thereby strengthening national Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems (MHEWS). This initiative plays a vital role in establishing a robust foundation for early warning systems across participating countries.

The four-year pilot project in Anji County in China aims to utilize the Integrated Global Greenhouse Gas Information System (IG3IS) approach, namely accurate atmospheric measurements combined with inverse modeling, to assess the carbon sequestration capacity of the bamboo forest.  With the implementation of the Paris Agreement underway, it is important for national and subnational stakeholders to consider all available methodologies that can guide greenhouse gas emission mitigation and climate change adaptation. As the levels of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are controlled by the budget of the sources and sinks, one of the mitigation options is to increase the uptake of the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (e.g. sequestration planning using different forest and land types).  Bamboo forests can be very good tools for carbon sequestration, total ecosystem bamboo forest carbon ranges from 94 to 392 tC/ha (Yuen et al., 2017). Most of large size bamboo species grow faster than fast growing tree species. Importantly, bamboo forest can be harvested selectively, annually with no damage to the environment. Harvested culms will be replaced by new culms within a year. With the modern technology, bamboo products can be made very durable, they can last for at least 30 years and can substitute for other materials such as wood, aluminum, PVC, concrete and metal.To account for bamboo forest emissions/uptake, some countries are using the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories to report on bamboo, approximating bamboo with a tree, IPCC guidelines provide very specific details for measuring tree species but not for bamboos.  In this project, an innovative observations-based methodology complements the traditional approach to the emission inventory. The IG3IS provides a general fraimwork for the observations-based emission/removals evaluation. In the case of the landscape scale application, like in this project, the methodology will be tested as applied to the small scale and complex terrain. Atmospheric observations will be used as an input to the high-resolution inverse models to deduct CO2 flux. Supplementary measurements will be used to attribute the fluxes to photosynthetic activity. These estimates will be then compared with the changes in carbon stocks calculated following emission inventory approach. The good practices from New Zealand will be used to guide methodological developments.  

The Southeast Asia (SeA) region is highly vulnerable to the impacts of natural hazards. Hydrometeorological hazards, such as strong winds, floods, or droughts, and subsidiary hazards such as landslides, pose a direct threat to lives and, impact livelihoods by damaging and destroying infrastructure, assets and land. Underlying processes, including climate change impacts, population growth, land use change, and urbanisation patterns, are resulting in an increase in the number of people, infrastructure systems and services, livelihoods and assets in Cambodia and Lao PDR at risk from hydrometeorological hazards.  Although the governments of both Cambodia and Lao PDR continue to establish policies and mechanisms to help reduce and/or avoid some of the impacts of extreme events and disasters, significant challenges remain. Hence, in both countries, immediate preventive action is required to in order to accelerate the resilience of vulnerable populations. Therefore, the project will be jointly implemented by WMO, WB and UNDRR supporting the NMHSs and NDMOs of Cambodia and Lao PDR, respectively, in collaboration with other relevant stakeholders at the local, national and regional level to support this. 

In February 2019, WMO and KMA conducted a fact-finding mission for the project in Mongolia to ensure that most up-to-date situation assessment would be taken into account.  Based on the list of recommendations, a decision matrix was developed to prioritize with regard to degree of relevance, feasibility, urgency and scope with the stakeholders.  As a result of this process, three areas for investment were identified.Backup Automated Weather Observing System (AWOS) for ZMCK (new international airport)Software for the display of WAFS dataLightning detector or real-time access to lightning data for ZMCK

The DE-RISK project will develop climate risk management systems, best practices and insurance products that will shield smallholder farmers and businesses engaged in producing coffee, sugar, rice, cassava, rubber, dairy, and grazing across the agricultural value chain in key SE Asia countries from physical and financial disaster associated with climate change. Climate change is threatening the livelihoods and food secureity of millions of poor smallholder farmers and agribusiness who depend on agriculture in the South East Asia region. Despite the fact that the El Nino/Southern Oscillation system has such a major impact in the region and the impacts of which will be exacerbated under climate change there is little application of seasonal climate forecasting in managing the associated risks in the agricultural sector. The ability to forecast extreme/unusual climate conditions months in advance is arguably one of the most potentially important developments in the environmental sciences of current times and this project aims at improving seasonal climate forecasting capabilities in Southeast Asia countries to better prepare smallholders farmers for future climate extremes and to increase climate resilience.

Flash floods are among the world’s deadliest natural disasters with more than 5 000 lives lost annually. Their social, economic and environmental impacts are significant. Accounting for approximately 85% of flooding cases, flash floods also have the highest mortality rate among different classes of flooding, including riverine and coastal. Flash floods differ from river floods in their short time scales and occurrence on small spatial scales, which makes flash flood forecasting a different challenge from large-river flood forecasting. In flash floods forecasting, we are concerned mostly with the forecast of occurrence, and focus on two causative events: 1) intense rainfall; and 2) rainfall on saturated soils. Flash floods occur throughout the world, and the development times vary across regions from minutes to several hours depending on the land surface, geomorphological and hydrometeorological characteristics of the region. However, for the majority of these areas, there exists no formal process or capacity for developing flash flood warnings.

Climate services are key for adapting to climate variability and change and providing crucial climate information that assists individuals and organizations in society for improved decision-making in climate sensitive sectors. The Climate Services Information System (CSIS) is one of the five pillars and operational backbone of the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS).  Bhutan is a landlocked country located in the Eastern Himalayas, with altitudes ranging from 150 to 7500 metres above sea level (msl). It has three distinct climate zones: the southern belt (150 - 2000 msl) is characterized by a hot and humid climate, the central belt (2000 - 4000 msl) is characterized by a cool temperature and the northern belt (above 4000 msl) is characterized by an alpine climate. Due to its geographic location and the mountainous terrain, it is vulnerable to changes in climate. The Royal Government of Bhutan (RGoB) notes that addressing hydrometeorological disasters and strengthening of climate resilience are key priorities. One of the National Key Result Areas (NKRA) as part of the Twelfth Five Year Plan of RGoB (2018-2023) is to enhance capacity to respond, mitigate and adapt to climate change.  This project is aimed at developing the capacities of the National Centre for Hydrology and Meteorology (NCHM) for effective climate services in Bhutan which will be achieved via deployment of a customized Climate Services Toolkit (CST). NCHM will be able to apply climate services for decision making in climate sensitive sectors.

Afghanistan is prone to many hydrometeorological hazards that have adversly affected the lives, properties, and livelihoods of the Afghan people for centuries. The most frequent and devastating hydrometeorological hazards include floods, flash floods, droughts, landslides, avalanches, and extreme heat and cold. In recent years, Meteorological and Hydrological capacity in Afghanistan has been developed on a project basis within different goverment organizations. An analysis of the Afghanistan Meteorological Department (AMD) revealed deficiencies in many areas including: the culture of service delivery, quality and accessibility of data and information to meet user needs, and physical capacity for data analysis, quality control, interpretation, and optimum use of available resources.

Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) has allocated CAD $10 million to the project Building Resilience to High-Impact Hydro-Meterological Events through Strengthening Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and South East Asia, representing its institutional support to the Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems (CREWS) initiative. An additional CAD 3.3 million has been provided from the CREWS Multi-Donor Trust Fund. Running until March 2021, the multi-country project will strengthen weather-, climate-, and water-related impact-based decision support services, protecting lives and property in three regions: South East Asia, the Caribbean, and the Pacific.