Back to news
2 Jan 2015 | News

Promoting regional efforts to reduce flood vulnerabilities

ICIMOD, in collaboration with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), organized the eighth Regional Steering Committee (RSC) meeting for the HKH-HYCOS project.

1 min Read

70% Complete
Inauguration of the newly established FABKA secretariat in Kathmandu. ICIMOD, 2019.

This final SRC meeting of the current phase was held from 22 to 24 September 2014 at the ICIMOD headquarters in Kathmandu. Participants from Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan as well as the WMO, Government of Finland, Finnish Meteorological Institute, ICIMOD, and international experts reviewed the project progress and endorsed a project proposal for the next phase, focusing on delivering lifesaving flood warning messages to vulnerable communities.

The HKH-HYCOS project is working to establish a regional flood information system in the HKH region in close collaboration with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the six regional partner countries namely, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. More specifically, the project seeks to reduce flood vulnerability in the Indus and Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna river basins by minimizing loss of lives and livelihoods. To that end, it works to strengthen regional cooperation for sharing flood data and information among the member countries. The project is supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Finland

1. Participants of 8th Regional Steering Committee Meeting for the HKH-HYCOS project
The project has upgraded 37 hydromet stations in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan. These stations can now automatically observe rainfall and water level measurements. The project has established web-based regional and national flood information systems for sharing real-time data and information for reducing risks. The project is also piloting a regional flood outlook model using Mike 11 hydrological software. Apart from real-time hydromet data from the 37 stations upgraded by the project, freely available rainfall forecast data is being inputted into the flood outlook model to add value and improve accuracy of the model. In order to sustain the initiative, the project has focused heavily on enhancing partner organizations’ technical capacity in flood forecasting and communication, and sought public private partnerships, especially with telecom operators, for disaster risk reduction.
In view of the imminent funding shortage between the end of the current phase and the next phase, RSC members have committed to supporting some of the project activities through their national budget.

Stay current

Stay up to date on what’s happening around the HKH with our most recent publications and find out how you can help by subscribing to our mailing list.

Sign Up

RELATED CONTENTS

Continue exploring this topic

29 Feb 2016 News
AIRCA Annual Steering Committee Meeting in Costa Rica

Directors and representatives of all members Association of International Research and Development Centers for Agriculture (AIRCA) gathered on ...

24 May 2017 SANDEE
ICIMOD Board of Governors Approves Two Key Planning Documents at Recent Annual Meeting

The Strategy and Results Framework (SRF) reviews ICIMOD’s various initiatives and programmes and provides a holistic ...

11 Oct 2015 News
Translating Koshi Basin Programme research into actionable policies

  Discussions on the preliminary findings of a recent socio-economic survey conducted on 1,600 households in 11 districts around the Koshi ...

6 Feb 2015 Cryosphere
Master Programme Thesis

Florencia Matina Tuladhar completed her thesis on “Determination of factors influencing recession ...

24 Aug 2017 News
Participants of On-the-job Training Develop Glacier Change Data for Selected HKH Basins

The outcome of their work was reported to their supervisors at ICIMOD on a weekly basis, where assigned experts provided ...

13 Jun 2017 Atmosphere Initiative
Studying the Contribution of Indoor Emissions to Outdoor Air Quality

The team used two sets of instruments to measure particulate matter (PM2.5), black carbon (BC), carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide ...

27 Mar 2015 News
Mobile based Crop Advisory System for Nepal

Experts from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and the Government of Nepal came together to brainstorm on ...

ICIMOD DG Inaugurates Nepal GIS Society Office Building

Krishna Poudel, the president of the society, chaired the programme. Welcoming guests to the programme, he highlighted the activities of ...