Report

Executive Summary

Introduction to the Meeting

The ECE Program is a follow-up initiative to the Asian Regional Meeting on El Nino Related Crises held in February 1998 by ADPC in collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and with support from the United States Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA). The goal of the ECE program is to significantly improve the understanding of the impacts of extreme climate events such as El Niœo and La Niœa on society and the environment in selected Asian countries and to reduce the disaster impacts of such events through effective application of climate forecast information. The OFDA-supported pilot program targeted the three Southeast Asian countries of Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, and also prepared the ground for a longer-term comprehensive regional program towards the application of climate forecasts for minimizing negative consequences and capitalizing on potential benefits associated with ECEs.

In October 1998, the Start-up Technical Strategy Session for the program was held at ADPC in Bangkok. Participants from the three target countries and international experts deliberated the issues and recommended an implementation strategy for the project. The Strategy Session inter alia recommended that the understanding of issues relating to application prospects of long-range forecast information should have a national focus.

As a follow-on to the recommendations of the Strategy Session, national scoping workshops were organized in all three target countries, with participants drawn from physical climate prediction agencies and climate forecast information user organizations. The national scoping workshops came up with implementation plans to undertake the documentation of past extreme climate events, their effects on local weather variables across different parts of the country, and their impacts.

The ECE Program Peer-review Meeting , held from 5-6 October 2000 in Bangkok, brought together representatives of the national agencies, and regional and international climate specialists . Its objectives were to:

1. Review and validate the methodologies adopted by the ECE Program for documentation and analysis of the impacts of past extreme climate events on different sectors in Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam.
2. Identify specific follow-up pilot activities in the three target countries.
3. Review the lessons learned during the implementation of the ECE Program, and identify opportunities for replication in the Asian region.

In addition to these pre-determined objectives, during the opening session participants also expressed expectations that the meeting would:

• Evaluate the ECE Program objectives and progress made, and identify constraints
• Identify research needs
• Discuss and understand sectoral risk and probability
• Discuss "safety nets" and social aspects of extreme events, as these affect sustainability
• Build synergy and cohesion among operations, science and users
• Identify scientific and institutional partnerships in the Asia-Pacific region
• Promote the ECE Program as a priority of development agencies

Contributions of the ECE Program

During the final session of the Peer-review Meeting, participants expressed their perceptions of contributions gained through their involvement in the ECE Program. In general, there is greater awareness and appreciation of ECEs and their impacts. More specifically, contributions were seen in the broad areas of data, users, climate variation, the national meteorological services, collaboration, and to ADPC itself, each spelled out in more detail below.

Enhanced Awareness

The ECE Program has enhanced awareness in the target countries regarding climate variability, and its differential impacts on different geographical locations and sectors. There is now a greater recognition of the need to understand better the linkages between global climatic phenomena and local climatic conditions. There is a greater recognition of different users and the need to ask them how they cope with ECEs.

Enhanced Inter-sectoral Dialogue

The ECE Program has helped in promoting inter-sectoral dialogue among various departments and agencies responsible directly or indirectly for managing the impacts of extreme climate events. Participants from Indonesia noted that it was the first time that a range of stakeholders in climate information came together. Colleagues in the PhilippinesØ public health sector have gained a new perspective on their own field by looking at the interactions of health and ECEs. For Vietnam, it was the first time that a range of existing and potential users of climate information interacted with the national meteorological agency at a common platform. In Vietnam, first steps are now being taken to institutionalize this process.

Throughout the meeting discussions, inter-sectoral collaboration repeatedly arose as not only a stimulus contributed by the ECE Program, but also as a direction in which participants were clearly committed to continuing. Put briefly, in many cases the ECE Program was the reason why "stakeholders" came together.

Information Base on ENSO Events

The peer-review meeting participants noted that even though climate information related to past ENSO events exists in the target countries, the ECE Program was the first attempt to build an official information base on past ENSO impacts. More attention is now being paid to the importance of data: compiling and processing it, developing and consulting databases with more awareness of ENSO, and getting processed information to users. The ECE Program has been able to generate a general map of vulnerability to past events which will form a basis for further action.

New Possibilities for Mitigation of Impacts

The documentation and analysis of past impacts of extreme climate events has led to identification of new possibilities for mitigation of climate variability related impacts. Tangible opportunities have been identified in typhoon prediction, public health, water resources and agriculture production sectors. Under the ECE Program, climate impacts on public health were recognized for the first time. In addition to episodes of extreme impacts, the Program has identified opportunities for application of climate information for purposes such as increasing rice production. This has provided ADPC with an opportunity to deal with a range of sectoral agencies and not only disaster management agencies. It is expected that in the case of future extreme climate events, ADPC will be able to mobilize these networks to institute mitigation measures well before impacts of these events start appearing.

Role of National Meteorological Services (NMS)

The representatives of the national meteorological services at the meeting expressed that the ECE Program has enhanced the awareness of the role of meteorological agencies within their countries. On one hand, it has highlighted the responsibility of NMSs towards user departments and on the other, the Program has helped develop a better understanding of the difficult role of NMSs. The participants felt that this would help garner more support for NMSs within their respective countries.

Need for Regional Collaboration

The Program highlighted the important role of regional collaboration in the area of climate forecasting applications. The important role of the ASEAN Specialized Meteorological Center in the region has been appreciated. Tangible opportunities for collaboration between the Philippines and Vietnam in the area of typhoon prediction have been identified.

Enhanced Capacity of ADPC

ADPC has gained from working with new agencies (e.g., national meteorological services, agriculture departments, public health departments) and specializations, and has expanded its ability to deal with its disaster management mandate in more areas with more expertise. At the same time, the ECE Program has challenged ADPC by raising expectations about its role and level of expertise, highlighting the need to build partnerships and strengthen institutional arrangements.

Recommendations for Follow-up

As mentioned previously, there was a strong commitment among all participants to continuing the work begun under the ECE Program. Indeed, the meeting was pervaded with the sense that, in addition to the clear contributions made by the program and the benefits gained by the participating agencies, this first phase also succeeded in raising numerous areas for follow-up. These are categorized below as pilot activities and research studies, although there will be some overlap between them. The recommendations have a two-fold purpose: first, to indicate potential areas for follow-up in the three target countries as expressed by the meeting participants, and second, to inform the expansion of ADPC and the ECE ProgramØs efforts to institutionalize the program at national levels and develop similar programs in other regions, with extension in the next phase to Bangladesh and Thailand.

Pilot Activities

• Focus on specific users: develop methodologies to translate climate information into possible impacts; assess community coping strategies; develop vulnerability indices.
• Consider user needs and activities at a "deeper" level. Pilot the application of climate information in one or two provinces in each country where understanding of climate systems and forecast skills is good. The program needs expansion into other areas to look at specific in-country variations.
• ADPC should develop a database of different climate information user needs and responses to allow comparability among countries.
• Test communications systems in the region to ensure their usability during ECEs.
• Develop lead-time scenarios for application of climate forecasts in different sectors. This will help in determining an optimal lead-time for dissemination and application of climate forecasts in specific sectors, and emphasize that both skill and timing of the forecasts are important.
• The Philippines and Vietnam need collaboration in research about typhoons since they are often both affected by the same systems, or one system affects one country, and then moves towards the other.
• Develop training curricula and conduct climate forecasting applications training. Collaborate with IRI, NCAR and East-West Center in order to move in this direction.
• Develop preparedness guides for dealing with the impacts of the next ENSO in different countries of the region.

Research Studies

• Study the indirect impacts of tropical storms, such as heavy rains from a tropical storm that directly affect one country, but cause flooding and crop losses in another.
• Assess in greater detail impacts of extreme climate events on critical resource sectors.
• Evaluate the economic costs and benefits of the application of ENSO forecasts.
• Evaluate community responses to increase awareness about vulnerability and specific responses.
• Identify the difference between exposure to risk and vulnerability to risk: these vary with hazard, area and sector. It becomes increasingly complex to identify specific vulnerabilities. Areas frequently exposed to risk can be identified, and action taken to mitigate impacts.
• Assess the resilience and adaptive capacity: There is a need to understand how capable communities are in responding. What information is available? When is it important to provide information? These questions highlight the importance of defining user needs.