Promoting research on dangerous weather phenomena in Southeast Asia

*Deputy Director General of the General Department of Hydrometeorology Hoang Duc Cuong opened the Workshop.*

The workshop took place over 3 days from May 16-18, with the participation of leading experts and researchers in meteorology and climate from the UK, Australia, New Zealand and researchers and forecasters from the National Meteorological Agency of the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Speaking at the opening of the workshop, Deputy Director General Hoang Duc Cuong said: Countries in the Southeast Asian region, especially island and coastal countries such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia, are annually subjected to many storms and other dangerous natural disasters such as storms, floods, landslides, rising water, severe cold, heat waves, droughts, etc., which have a serious impact on the socio -economy and livelihoods of people in the region.

Over the past 30 years, on average, natural disasters have killed and left missing nearly 400 people in Vietnam each year, with economic losses of 1-1.5% of GDP. From 2019 to November 2022, the total number of human losses was 763; economic losses were VND 71,114 billion. Notably, in the historic year of natural disasters in 2020, 357 people died and went missing, with economic losses of VND 40 trillion.

Given the above damage, forecasting and warning of dangerous natural disasters is very important for the Government and people of Vietnam as well as other Southeast Asian countries. However, there are some weather phenomena and types of natural disasters that we still cannot grasp, cannot forecast and warn accurately due to many subjective and objective reasons, including factors related to the development of science and technology.

“Therefore, with the cooperation and support of Met UK through the Weather and Climate Science Research Programme to Support UK Partners (WCSSP) under the Newton Fund, these dangerous weather and natural disaster phenomena have been studied more deeply in Southeast Asian countries on a global and regional scale to develop forecasting and warning tools with higher quality and reliability,” emphasized Deputy Director General Hoang Duc Cuong.

He also hopes that the Program will continue to be implemented in the coming time to strengthen solidarity, enhance research on dangerous weather phenomena; improve the capacity of forecasters and researchers towards a Southeast Asia safe from natural disasters, contributing to reducing natural disaster risks worldwide .

The Southeast Asia Regional Weather and Climate Science Conference is an opportunity for participating countries to share experiences and promote research towards a sustainable Southeast Asia. This is a very important event, demonstrating the close cooperation between Met UK and Southeast Asian countries to address the issue of disaster risk reduction and sustainable socio-economic development.

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