RIMES - Multi Hazard and Climate Risk Management
RIMES
came into existence as a multi-lateral
technical cooperation platform formally on
30th April 2009 with the first batch of 5 countries signing the
Cooperation Agreement on the RIMES for Africa and Asia in consonance with
Articles 5 and 25 of the United Nations. RIMES Secretariat is established by the
Republic of Maldives at Maldives Meteorological Services, Ministry of
Environment and Transport, Male. The RIMES Programme Unit and the RIMES
Regional Facility are located at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) Campus
in Pathumthani, Near Bangkok, Thailand.
RIMES
had dedicated its efforts to build institutional structures for holistically
dealing all aspects of multi-hazard and climate risk management for bringing a
major shift to make all RIMES country partners fully disaster resilient by
upgrading the early warning systems as per their national
circumstances.
The
RIMES council in its first meeting held on 30th April 2009
constituted an Executive Board to translate designated mandates into actionable
initiatives. Appreciating the prominence gained by India in the Indian Ocean
region after the setting up of the state-of-the art Tsunami Warning Centre
(NTWC) at the ESSO-INCOIS, Hyderabad, and the associated professional
accomplishments, India has been elected to the Chair of the RIMES Executive
Board. With the clearance of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Government
of India, Dr Shailesh Nayak, Secretary to the Ministry of Earth Sciences,
accepted the Chair of the RIMES Executive Board.
Union
Cabinet has approved the Cooperation Agreement with the RIMES on 7th
December, 2010 and India formally joined the RIMES family on 24th
Feb., 2011 by signing the Agreement. RIMES Executive Council has elected India
as its Chairman with all other member states/countries as members.
2. The
European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts, UK, has signed an MOU with
RIMES to support for building country specific Early Warning Systems under its
umbrella.
3. RIMES
Family
12
Member States:
Bangladesh, Cambodia, Comoros, India, Lao PDR, Maldives, Mongolia, Papua New
Guinea, Philippines, Seychelles, Sri Lanka and Timor-Leste.
19
Collaborating Countries:
Afghanistan, Armenia, Bhutan, China, Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius,
Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Russian Federation, Somalia, Tanzania,
Thailand, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Yemen.
4. RIMES
primary focus area is to build joint efforts for enhancing capacity building of
national to local level institutions on all aspects of end-to-end early warning,
within each Member States’ early warning frameworks.
5. Highlights of
the areas of collaboration between Government of India and RIMES
i. NCMRWF,
NOIDA: provision of global outputs as well as high performance computing
resources to RIMES to generate customised products for Member States. RIMES also
facilitates sharing of observation data from Member States and in validation of
NCMRWF outputs
ii. INCOIS,
Hyderabad: provision of customised high resolution ocean state forecast products
through RIMES to Member States for meeting their marine forecasting
applications. RIMES facilitates feedback from Member States and validation of
outputs
6. Ministry of
Earth Sciences is supporting for expansion of the
targeted efforts, under RIMES umbrella, towards research, education,
communication, and the application of proven knowledge science and technology.
Strategic investments, of human and capital in such matters, as they relate to
hazards, offer the promise of producing significant reductions in the loss of
life and property from natural, technological and human-induced disasters.
One
of the mechanisms prioritized is of funding support from Government of India to
RIMES to address priorities identified by RIMES Member States and Collaborating
Countries. Funding proposals of RIMES to be implemented in Myanmar, Maldives,
Philippines, Nepal and 4-Coastal/Island Countries (COMOROS,
SEYCHELLES, MALDIVES, MOZAMBIQUE AND SRILANKA) are approved by
the Government of India for implementation in next 3-years.
(i) Crustal
Deformation Measurement and Seismicity Monitoring over the Indo-Southeast Asian
Region (to be implemented in Myanmar, Bhutan and Nepal)
(ii)
Development and Implementation of User-Relevant End-to-End Flood Forecast
Generation for Myanmar (to be implemented in Myanmar)
(iii)
Technical Assistance for Development of Flood Forecast Generation and
Application System for Disaster Mitigation in Nepal(to be implemented in
Nepal)
(iv)
Development and Implementation of User-Relevant End-to-End Hydrological Forecast
Generation and Application System for Disaster Mitigation in Philippines (to
be implemented in Philippines)
(v)
Development and Implementation of an Integrated Ocean Information System for the
Indian Ocean Countries: Phase-I for Comoros, Seychelles, Maldives, Mozambique
and Srilanka (including development of Service Level-III real-time tsunami
simulation and loss estimation sub-system)
Other
details can be seen from www.rimes.int
7. Major
Accomplishments made with India’s Support
The
RIMES Program Unit is the RIMES operational arm for providing multi-hazard
end-to-end early warning services (from observation and monitoring station
support, regional data management, and tool development, to capacity building of
national and local institutions to address last mile issues, and capacity
building of communities for appropriate and timely response to forecasts and
warnings) to Member States
Asian
Institute technology (AIT), Bangkok has been housing the RIMES Program Unit with
early warning infrastructure facilities built from funding
support from UNESCAP and thus being centrally located to connect to countries in
these regions, Member States decided to continue this arrangement.
RIMES
Program Unit provides country level tsunami inundation forecast services,
drawing inputs from INCOIS, and weather forecast services, drawing inputs from
NCMRWF. Appreciating these country- specific value added products from RIMES
Program Unit, RIMES Member States requested India to extend its services to all
RIMES regions through RIMES Program Unit. Hence, RIMES will potentially be
connecting India’s services to around 60 countries in Africa, Asia, and Pacific
Regions. Appreciating these requests, India approved priority projects[i]
to be implemented by RIMES Program Unit.
RIMES
core services, which include the following, are valuable to its Member
States:
o Improving data
availability for enhancing forecasts and warnings.
o Establishment
and maintenance of core regional observing and monitoring
networks.
o Provision of
country level tsunami watch and coastal inundation forecasts from the INCOIS
guidance for the member countries.
o Support to NMHSs
in the provision of localized ocean information products from
the INCOIS products
o Support to NMHSs
in provision of location-specific hydro-meteorological warning
information by utilizing
ESSO-NCMRWF forecast products
o Capacity
building on end-to-end warning at all levels.
RIMES
continuously engages in research and development activities to enable it to
deliver cutting edge, but low-cost and efficient technologies, and build
capacity on new techniques and tools. Currently, RIMES is developing decision
support systems for sectoral application in Bangladesh, Maldives, Myanmar,
Nepal, and Sri Lanka, using 3- to 10-day forecasts to assess impacts and issue
advisories in the agriculture, animal husbandry, public health, energy, and
water resource sectors. PIB
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