Scientists in Koblenz help to recognise global droughts at an early stage
[divider line_type=”No Line” custom_height=”15″]On 14 and 15 November 2024, international scientists and representatives of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), national weather services and other authorities discussed at the BfG how droughts can be predicted on a global scale. A corresponding service should be operational by the middle of next year.
‘In the OUTLAST project launched in September 2022, we are working on recognising droughts and the associated consequences for different sectors earlier and on a global scale. To this end, we are currently building the world’s first seasonal drought forecasting system that can quantify drought risks for various sectors such as water supply, river and land ecosystems, rainfed agriculture and irrigated agriculture,’ says ICWRGC scientist Dr Tinh Vu. ICWRGC, which is based at the BfG, contributes to the water programmes of the United Nations.
The special feature of the forecasting system is that it is a model-based real-time monitoring system that provides global information for the next six months in monthly increments. ‘This information is becoming increasingly important when it comes to the predicted effects of climate change on water availability. This is illustrated not least by the WMO report on the status of global water resources published in October,’ says the scientist. The authors involved in the WMO report showed that 2023 was the driest year in 33 years.[divider line_type=”No Line” custom_height=”15″]
Forecasts and real-time results from OUTLAST will be a building block for a global water information system
The 27 participants at the two-day OUTLAST workshop discussed, among other things, how the drought risk indicators in OUTLAST (forecasts and real-time results) can be clearly visualised on maps and what functions a future web portal should have. However, the main topic of the workshop was the upcoming integration of the drought forecasting system into the Global Hydrological Status and Outlook System (HydroSOS). HydroSOS is a global monitoring system operated by WMO that observes and forecasts the status and development of water resources worldwide.
Among other things, the system provides forecasts for the management of water resources and forms the backbone of a global water information system. ‘HydroSOS utilises a variety of different information sources, in particular the observation and forecast data from the WMO member countries, but also other global data products. So far, however, these have mainly represented river discharge. ‘With OUTLAST, we are closing the gap to other sectors, including agriculture and land ecosystem management. The integration of this data helps HydroSOS to paint an even more comprehensive picture of the actual hydrological state of the world,’ explains the OUTLAST expert.[divider line_type=”No Line” custom_height=”15″]
Trial operation of the drought forecasting service will start next year
In the next step, Stephan Dietrich, Tinh Vu and the cooperation partners are working on an implementation concept for the operational provision of the hydrometeorological drought forecasts from OUTLAST, which should enable subsequent continuous operation. There are also plans to test the OUTLAST drought forecasting system in Koblenz from spring 2025. The aim is to gather experience for the operational use of the system. The OUTLAST results can then be downloaded free of charge. Another unique selling point of OUTLAST is that the system is designed as a cloud solution. This enables flexible implementation of the forecasting system at different locations. The current development status can already be accessed on the HydroSOS pilot portal: https://wmohydrosos.ceh.ac.uk/casestudies/outlast[divider line_type=”No Line” custom_height=”15″]The original German version of this article was developed by the public relations team of BfG and published on the BfG website.