Iberoamerican Cooperation on Weather, Water, and Climate

The cooperation between National Meteorolgical and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) is critical to achieve an improvement in the provision of their services to society, mainly those related with monitoring of natural disasters of hydrometeorological origin, which in addition, as a consequence of climate change, an increase in the intensity and frequency of these extreme phenomena is to be expected. The provision of reliable and timely meteorological and hydrological information as well as the generation of regionalized climate change scenarios to assess vulnerability and future impacts, is of great importance for the adoption of preventive measures in this type of disaster, especialmente para las poblaciones y ecosistemas mas vulnerables

For this reason, and taking advantage of the unique framework that provides the cultural and idiomatic heritage in Iberoamerica was established the Conference of Directors of Iberoamerican NMHSs (CIMHET), constituted by all 21 NMHSs of Iberoamerica, including Spain and Portugal. CIMHET includes at 10% of World Meteorological Organization (WMO) members

CIMHET provides a systematic framework of work and cooperation to improve operational and institutional capabilities and also resources optimization and interchange of experiences between Iberoamerican NMHSs. For this, the Conference approves in its annual meetings action plans, with different activities that are carried out from 2004 by means of the Ibero-American Meteorological Cooperation Program, developed with the collaboration of WMO and funded mostly by a trust fund established by Spain in this organization

From the experience, the Program has evolved, giving increasing importance to regional and subregional activities. Currently, the Program has tree strategic lines: Institutional strengthening and resource mobilization; provision of meteorological, climatic and hydrological services; education and training

The activities carried out in the program include those related to the prevention of extreme events, through training activities, with more than 60 courses and more than 1.000 students from 2004, the development of NMHSs modernization projects or the creation of virtual regional warning centers for adverse hydrometeorological phenomena.

The objective of the virtual regional warning centers is to provide a regional strengthening to extreme hydrometeorological events, by coordinating actions and providing accurate, timely and coordinated information. They will be built on the basis of the operational capacities of the NMHSs involved, using existing observation networks in a coordinated manner and creating regional networks to optimize costs and coverage.

During this years, CIMHET has has been consolidated and provides a forum for dialogue between Ibero-American NMHSs, recognized by WMO as an example of cooperation and operability.

Also, in the Iberoamerican context there are other networks that bring together at responsibles on water and climate change sectors, respectively the Conference of Iberoamerican Directors of Water (CODIA) and the Iberoamerican Network of Climate Change Offices (RIOCC), that, join with CIMHET, they have great potential to carry out join strategies and activities, among others on hydrometeorological origin disasters prevention, both, in national and regional levels.

Joint workshops are being held between networks, in which are identified priorities action lines related with the forecast, watching and monitoring of extreme hydrometeorological events; with the generation of regionalized climatic change scenarios and its application to determine the future impacts on water resources and extreme events; and with the development of tools to integrate climate change adaptation in risk management of extreme hydrometeorological events.

These activities are expected to be carried out through joint regional projects at the regional level, so that the development of alert systems can be comprehensively addressed, taking into account both the monitoring of atmospheric phenomena and their effects on hydrology and water resources and their possible increase, both in frequency and intensity due to the effects of climate change.