Open initiatives and new applications for “Big Data” constitute a genuine opportunity to provide decision makers with powerful new tools for tracking and predicting hazardous events, protecting vulnerable communities, understanding human factors and targeting where to optimize programs and policies. For many "data poor" countries and communities accessing “Big Data” can expand credibility and usefulness of meteorological forecasts and warnings. Turning big data sets – satellite images, in situ and mobile sensor observations, online user-generated content, environmental data archives, weather and water forecasts, and climate model results, etc. – into useful and actionable information and integrating this complex information into decision support requires subject matter expertise, automated data retrieval, and analytical and computational techniques, and visualization, mapping and decision tools to unveil trends and patters within and between these extremely large environmental and socio-economic datasets. The significance of "big Data" is growing and expected to close both information and timeliness gaps that limit capabilities to plan, mitigate, or adapt to environmental hazards and change. Yet many National Meteorological and Hydrological Services and other stakeholders have no means to analyze and utilize effectively the new Big Data load that is present today and will continue to grow rapidly in the future. With the promise come questions about the value, competitiveness and costs of different strategies and thus technical and policy relevance of Big Data. Join our presenters who will share their “Big Data” approaches and expertise to learn more about the practical and tactical side for crisis management and capacity development while exploring key questions: •Who will identify the various user needs and establish strategies and solutions to get the huge value of Big Data sets? •Who will be responsible for acquiring, processing, integrating, and delivering data and information of Big Data sets? •How can Big Data be used for “real-time” risk and crisis management? •What are good practices for integrating data sets for users and delivering tools needed for decision making? •What role will the government, academic institutions and the private sector have in connecting users with the data and information they need? For additional information, please contact David Green (301.580.3517, david.green@noaa.gov ) Curt Barrett (301.252.9189, cbarrett@ofda.gov ) or Tom Fahy (202.375.4696 tfahy@capitalgr.com )