UAE, Pakistan to share technology, enhance capacity for weather, seismic monitoring
Agreement will also help tsunami early warning capabilities
Abu Dhabi: UAE and Pakistan’s national weather bureaus will collaborate to enhance seismology and meterology capabilities, following the launch of technical cooperation programme.
The programme between the UAE’s National Centre of Meteorology (NCM) and the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) will also work to enhance seismic activity in the region, the NCM said in a statement on Friday.
Cooperation will extend to marine meteorological services, hydrology and flood forecasting, seismology, and even scientific research to better monitor and understand seismic activities that have the potential to generate tsunamis in the Arabian Sea and the Sea of Oman. In addition, the programme will see the exchange of round-the-clock seismic information.
The cooperation agreement was signed by Dr Abdullah Ahmed Al Mandoos, NCM director, and Mahr Sahibzad Khan, PMD director general permanent representative of Pakistan with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), on the sidelines of the WMO Regional Conference in the Regional Association II in Abu Dhabi.
“As part of our responsibility to monitor and assess seismic activity within the UAE, the Technical Cooperation Programme will allow the NCM and PMD to better understand the possible dangers of seismic activity and tsunamis. Only through cutting-edge research work, and by promoting collaborative efforts and knowledge transfers within the scientific community, can we begin to develop systems and solutions that minimise the risk and damage of future seismic activity,” Dr Al Mandoos said.
“We are delighted to be working with the NCM and its team on this project. By expanding our relationship with the NCM, we are highlighting the importance of monitoring meteorological and seismic activity, as well as integrating and analysing new data that could lead to future discoveries in these groundbreaking academic fields,” Khan said.
The new programme aims to integrate weather and seismic activity data, and the development of special capacities for tsunami models research. This should allow for faster and more reliable forecasts of tsunamis propagating through the Oman Sea, which may then affect the coastal areas of Pakistan and the northeast of the UAE.
The collaborative efforts will also enhance technical cooperation and exchange expertise by providing support to the Tsunami Early Warning Centre (TEWC) with advanced forecast modelling software that is specifically designed to support the tsunami forecasting operations.