THE WMO PROJECT ON CATALOGING HAZARDOUS HYDROMETEOROLOGICAL EVENTS: LESSONS LEARNED  
BY UKRAINE

V. Manukalo1, V. Boiko2, N. Holenya2  

1Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Institute, Kyiv, Ukraine

2Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Centre, Kyiv, Ukraine

Corresponding author: V. Manukalo, 37, Nauki Prospect, Kyiv, Ukraine, e-mail:manukalo@ukr.net  

ABSTRACT

The article deals with the results of research which was carried out by the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Institute and the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center in the framework of the WMO Project "Cataloging Hazardous Hydrometeorological Events". The cataloging methodology was elaborated by WMO experts and is based on a standardized procedure for identification and description of natural disasters caused by hazardous hydrometeorological events, beginning from a time of creation of warning of dangerous event and up to ending of estimation of damages caused by this event. A description of dangerous hydrometeorological events as well as an assessment of losses caused by these events, were recorded in the agreed EXCEL table format with standard definitions of event types. The filled tables were sent to the European Regional Climate Center (ERCC), which operates under the German Weather Service. The terms of the Project stipulate that the ERCC ensures a full methodological and technical coordination of the Project implementation, including an integration of data received from countries, their consolidation into a regional database and an integration of many events in one regional event that corresponds to their origin.  The implementation of the Project first phase was completed in December 2018. During the second Project phase (January- May 2019) an analysis of results was carried out. The experience gained from the Project implementation, was used to create " the WMO methodology for cataloging hazardous weather, climate, water and space weather events" that was presented for consideration at the 18th World Meteorological Congress in June 2019. The Congress adopted the cataloging methodology and recommended to implement this methodology on an operational basis in the hydrometeorological services. The participation of the Hydrometeorological Service of Ukraine in the Project should be considered as very useful. The Ukrainian side got the opportunity:  to get acquainted with an international experience in the field of standardization of description of  negative influence of extreme hydrometeorological phenomena; to compare the state of affairs in this area of activity in the Hydrometeorological Service of Ukraine and in relevant services of  European countries; to bring the contribution in international efforts aimed at reducing the risks of natural disasters. The obtained results showed an importance of reviewing a number of standards and other regulations which are currently used in organizations of the Hydrometeorological Service. The researches in this area is currently being carried out by the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Institute.

INTRODUCTION

At present, the natural disasters are adverse factors that hold back a socio-economic development of society even in the developed countries. Among the natural disasters, the most prevalent, in particular in Ukraine, are those caused by factors of hydrometeorological origin. A number of natural disasters associated with extreme hydrometeorological events has increased significantly over the past decades. Thus, according to the UN Natural Disaster Risk Reduction Bureau, for the period from 1995 to 2015, about 606,000 people were killed by natural disasters due to extreme hydrometeorological events, and about 4.1 billion people lost their property. The economic losses are amounted about $ 1.9 trillion (Natural Disasters in 2017…, 2018). 

           The investments in the measures of reducing risks of adverse effects of natural disasters save lives and prevent economic losses. Over the world, it is recognized that disaster risk reduction activities should be a part of balanced development of society. The UN has adopted a series of documents defining "The International Strategy for Disaster Reduction", approved by resolution 56/195 of the UN General Assembly. The Disaster Risk Reduction Program has become one of the priority areas of UN activities. The basis of this Program is the principle of transition from a liquidation of disaster consequences to creating effective tools for their early warning, that is, concentrating efforts and resources on preventing new risks, reducing existing ones, and strengthening a society's resilience to these risks.

          Regarding successful implementation of the UN Disaster Risk Reduction Program, the national hydrometeorological services play one of the key roles, as they send the information, forecasts and warnings which are the core segment of the Early Disaster Warning System. A coordination of participation of the national hydrometeorological services in international efforts to reduce a risk of natural disasters is one of priority directions of the work of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

           The 17th World Meteorological Congress (2015) emphasized the need for systematic characterization and cataloguing of extreme weather and climate events in a form that allows data on losses and damage to be cross-referenced to the phenomena, and adopted Resolution 9 to “…standardize weather, water, climate, space weather and other related environmental hazard and risk information and to develop identifiers for cataloguing extreme weather, water and climate events” (WMO publication, No 1157, 2015).   

           In a pursuance of the Congress resolution the approach for cataloging hydrometeorological events (having a potential to be associated with high impacts in terms of losses and damages) was developed at the International Workshop on Cataloging and Monitoring Information on Extreme Weather, Water and Climate Events which was held at WMO in November 2017 (WMO Publication, 2017). In fact, this approach has allowed to standardize whole process of identification, description in space and time of extreme hydrometeorological events with an assessment of damages caused by these events.

           In February 2018, the 17th Session of the WMO Regional Association VI (Europe) took the decision “...to test the proposed approach for cataloging high impact events, involving a standard topology of high impact event types and the assignment of universal unique identifier (UUID), as a mean of tracing events and enabling them to be systematically linked to associated data on loss and damage such as is being routinely collected by relevant authorities, and that the test phase should start in 2018 and continue over a sufficient period to deliver results and recommendations relevant for operationalization of the approach the 18th  Session of the World Meteorological Congress in 2019”.

            In July 2018, at the Headquarters of the German Weather Service, the working meeting of experts from the hydrometeorological services of 13 European countries, as well as representatives of the WMO Secretariat was hold. During the meeting "The Guide on Test Phase on Cataloguing Hydro-Meteorological Events Having High Impact Potential" was considered and agreed upon. It was decided to conduct the test phase in two stages: the first stage covered the period from September to December 2018, the second one - from January to May 2019. The overall coordination of this work was entrusted to the WMO Secretariat, and the methodological and technical support - to the European Regional Climate Center, which operates under the German Weather Service.  

          The purpose of the article is to present the main tasks, organizational principles, methodological approaches, and some results of the test phase of cataloging hydrometeorological events with high potential of influence, with an emphasis on the analysis of peculiarities associated with conducting this work in Ukraine.

METHODS AND DATA (STUDY AREA)  

          The issue of creation of unified approaches to describe the extreme hydrometeorological events and disasters related to them is highlighted in a number of national and international regulatory documents (Guide on Forecasting and Warning…,2003; Heat waves and Health…, 2015; Hydrology of Land. Term and Definitions…,1997; Meteorology. Terms and Definitions…, 1997). These documents are different by approaches used for identification of dangerous events, for definition of quantitative indicators that can cause natural disasters, as well as for ways of collection of data of damages. This WMO Project can be considered as the first attempt to develop and implement in the international practice the standardized approach to describe extreme hydrometeorological events having high impact potential.

         Project participants agreed that the test phase for cataloging of high impact events should be based on the following principles, which were elaborated by WMO experts (International Workshop on Cataloguing…,2017): a) preserving the right of each country to state how they choose to record and warn for hazards; b) do not categorize hazards or events into groups (e.g. meteorological, hydrological, climate); c) initially we restrict to hydrometeorological hazards; d) do not quantify and qualify hazard definition or express its severity (e.g. extreme, heavy, high); e) align to emerging the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP2.0) for warnings to avoid duplication, confusion and misinterpretation.

        The CAP2.0 Protocol is the simple but universal format for exchanging alerts on all types of emergencies, and for warning the population about them by using all communication means (Guidelines for Implementation of Common Alerting Protocol…, 2013).  

        The methodology of cataloging natural disasters of hydrometeorological origin is schematically illustrated by the figure, which presents the key indicators that are used to describe the events, as well as the parameters that are the subjects of description.

Fig. 1. Structure of recording the extreme hydrometeorological events

(International Workshop on Cataloguing….,2017)

            The certain list of extreme hydrometeorological events was included in works during the test phase (International Workshop on Cataloguing…,2017). The hydrometeorological events that have a high probability of formation in Ukraine are included into this study (Table 1). The hydrometeorological events have been divided into three groups: systemic, primary and those that are directly subject to be described.  

Table 1. Types of extreme hydrometeorological events, which have been the subject of cataloging

             The experts from the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Institute (UHMI) and the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center (UHMC) took part in the Project implementation. The study has been carried out on the basis of agreed procedure for identification and registration in an appropriate format of data on extreme hydrometeorological events which are classified according to the classification adopted in Ukraine as "dangerous" (they are designated orange color) and "extremely dangerous" (red color).    

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Cataloging procedure  

           When, according to a forecast of the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Centre a formation of a "dangerous" or an "extremely dangerous" hydrometeorological event has been expected in Ukraine, a hydrometeorological warning has been placed on the UHMC site (https://meteo.gov.ua). The date and time of warning placement on the site have been considered as a beginning of the cataloging work. The information related to a description of hydrometeorological event, actions of the Hydrometeorological Service to prevent their negative consequences, as well as the information about losses incurred by these events, have been recorded in an agreed EXCEL table format with standard definitions of types of events.

          We will consider the procedure of filling the table on the example of recording the information about the extreme hydrometeorological event (rain flood), which was observed in Ukraine in May 2019 (Table 2). In this example, in order to simplify the materials presentation, the table has been filled in the WORD format.

Table 2. Example of recording the information about the extreme hydrometeorological event
(rain flood), which was observed in Ukraine in May 2019

Row 1. The 32 character random sequence of UUID, which is formed for each individual hydrometeorological event, was determined automatically using a software placed on the site: https://www.uuidgenerator.net.

Row 2. Warning of the threat of extreme hydrometeorological event was created on 20 of May, 2019 at 06 hours 00 minutes UTC, where UTC means "coordinated universal time" used by all hydrometeorological services over the world for time-coordinated observations.  

Row 3 contains the name of hydrometeorological organization that created the warning, namely, the Ukrainian Hyrodrometeorological Center.

Rows 4 and 5 contain information about the expected date and time of event start, and about the actual date and time of event end.

Rows 6 and 7. Types of events were determined based on the data given in Table 1. In our case, the "primary" extreme hydrometeorological event is a flood that was formed under an action of the "system" hydrometeorological event - the cyclone.      

Row 8. The area of the hydrometeorological event covers the territory of Dniester, Tysa, Uzh, Latoritsa river basins within Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Trans-Carpathians administrative districts (oblasts).      

Row 9 contains the name of the hydrometeorological event to be described, in our case, "rain flood", that is, the flood which is caused by heavy rainfall.  

Row 10 contains the description of quantitative characteristics of hydrometeorological event.

The row 11 contains information on the presence of a linkage between the described extreme hydrometeorological event and another dangerous event. In our case the heavy rain flood caused landslides and mudflows.

Row 12 presents the status of recording the hydrometeorological event, namely, recording was completed or it is continued. In our case, recording was completed.

Row 13 contains information on actual quantitative characteristics of hydrometeorological event that were recorded in points of hydrometeorological measurements, as well as information on losses caused by this event. Losses data were received from territorial divisions of the State Service of Ukraine for Emergency.

When filling the table 2, paid a lot of attention to the quality control of the data that was entered into the database. The primary control was carried out directly in the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Centre. The Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Institute has performed the scientific analysis of materials. After the final checking and agreement of data, these table has been sent to the European Regional Climate Center.    

The terms of the project stipulate that the ERCC ensures full methodological and technical coordination of project implementation, including the integration of data received from countries, its consolidation into a regional database and the integration of many phenomena in one regional phenomenon that corresponds to their origin. The information generalized on regional level has been posted on the German Weather Service website, that is enable all interested institutions to use it in hydrometeorological and climatic studies.    

The implementation of the first Project phase was completed in December 2018. The second phase has been carried out during January-May 2019. During this phase, the analysis of obtained results was carried out. The main focus will be on how the proposed methodological and organizational approaches allow standardizing the process of describing natural disasters of hydrometeorological origin at national and international levels. The general results of test phase implementation test phase can be found in a report prepared by the group of authors from German Weather Service.

The experience gained as a result of the Project carrying out, was used to create "The WMO methodology for cataloging hazardous weather, climate, water and space weather events" that was presented for consideration and approval by the 18th World Meteorological Congress in June 2019.   The Congress's decisions and recommendations on this issue were reflected in the resolution 5.1/1 (Cg-18). In particular, the Congress:  

- “…convinced that a standard methodology for cataloging hazardous hydrometeorological events, including internationally agreed definitions and accounting practices, is essential for many disaster risk management (DRM) applications”;  

- “…agrees that the proposed methodology will fill a major gap in the standardization of data collection and use of information on weather, water, climate and space weather events and their recording and archiving in interoperable databases”;  

- “…adopts the cataloging methodology hereafter referred to as “WMO Cataloging of Hazardous Events” (WMO-CHE);  

- ‘…requests the technical commissions and other bodies, in collaboration with the Regional Associations, relevant partner organizations and entities, to: 1) establish an implementation plan for developing globally agreed standards and procedures for identifying and cataloging hazardous weather, climate, water and space weather events…; 2) set up a mechanism for the coordination of the implementation of this methodology on an operational basis”.  

Lessons and experience learned by Ukraine from participation in the Project

First of all, the participation of hydrometeorological organizations in Ukraine in the Project should be considered as very useful. The Ukrainian side got the opportunity: 1) to get acquainted with an international experience in the field of standardization of description of negative influence of extreme hydrometeorological events; 2) to compare the state of affairs in this area of activity in the Hydrometeorological Service of Ukraine and in relevant services of  European countries; c) to bring the contribution in international efforts aimed at reducing the risks of natural disasters

Concerning organizational issues related to the implementation of this work, it should be noted that the Hydrometeorological Service of Ukraine have a certain advantage over the Services of many European countries. In Ukraine, the meteorological and hydrological services are united in the join state institution, while in many European countries meteorological and hydrological services work as separate institutions.  In Ukraine, this state of affairs facilitates a collection and processing of information, as well as forecasting, as often extreme meteorological events cause a formation of extreme hydrological events.

In general, the level of cooperation between the Hydrometeorological Service of Ukraine and the State Service of Ukraine for Emergencies (SES) should be recognized as sufficiently effective. The SES is authorized by the Government of Ukraine to implement the national policy in the sphere of protection of population and territories from the negative impact of natural and man-made disasters. In particular, the SES coordinates, at the national level, the organizational and methodological issues of accounting for losses incurred by sectors of economy and the population by natural disasters.

On the other hand, there were problems in assessing the damages from natural disasters. In many European countries there is a mechanism for quantification of losses which are expressed in a monetary form. In Ukraine receiving such information from local authorities requires a considerable efforts and time. Often, the received data "to put it mildly" cannot be considered as reliable, but there is no a possibility to check them. This complicates not only a determination of losses, but also an evaluation of effectiveness of activity of the Hydrometeorological Service to prevent dangerous hydrometeorological events.

There are a number of methodological problematic issues that reflect the current level of scientific, methodological and technological developments of the Hydrometeorological Service of Ukraine. In number of cases standards on terms and definitions in the field of hydrometeorology developed earlier in Ukraine do not conform to the WMO technical documents that have been adopted in recent years. The national regulatory documents on an organization of observation, forecasting and prevention of extreme hydrometeorological phenomena are different from similar documents of foreign hydrometeorological services in terms of determining quantitative indicators of dangerous values of extreme hydrometeorological phenomena.  

The presence in the hydrometeorological services of many European countries of advanced models of hydrometeorological forecasting and powerful computing equipments required for complex model calculations allows them to predict and prevent dangerous hydrometeorological phenomena with greater details in space and time.  

However, there are also differences in approaches to a description of extreme hydrometeorological phenomena, as well as to a collection of information on damages and losses between the European Hydrometeorological Services, especially when the meteorological and hydrological activities are provided by different institutions.

Finally, it should be noted that the English translation of Ukrainian geographic names and names of administrative districts should be corrected in tabular and cartographic formats used to form databases on the cataloging of hazardous hydrometeorological events.  

The above-mentioned problematic issues caused some difficulties in creating a standardized procedure for cataloging of hazardous extreme hydrometeorological phenomena. Therefore, in decisions of the18th World Meteorological Congress it is envisaged, to develop (based on the proposed methodology) an implementation plan for developing globally agreed harmonized standards and procedures for identifying and cataloging of hazardous hydrometeorological events.

CONCLUSIONS

The participation of organizations of the Hydrometeorological Service of Ukraine in the WMO project on cataloging hazardous hydrometeorological events allowed them: 1) to gain a new knowledges and experience as well as make a contribution in developing the international standardization in the field of hydrometeorological activity; 2) to bring a contribution in international efforts, aimed at reducing the risks of natural disasters. The international guidelines for cataloging hazards hydrometeorological events will become one of the key tools for disaster risk management and protection. In addition, the data of the international catalog of natural disasters of hydrometeorological origin will be used in studies of climate change and a relation of these changes with hazardous hydrometeorological events. The obtained results showed the importance of reviewing a number of standards and other normative documents that are currently used in organizations of the Hydrometeorological Service of Ukraine. The researches in this area is currently being carried out by the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Institute within the framework of the study "The development of Standards and Other Regulatory Documents in the Field of Hydrometeorological Activity".

Also, the implementation plan of developing and introducing the methodology for cataloging hazardous hydrometeorological events in the organizations of the Hydrometeorological Service of Ukraine has been prepared.

REFERENCES

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