The Department of Hydro-Met Services and the Finnish meteorological institute received a grant of 460,000 Euros from Finland, last August. The grant was received to execute the project for strengthening hydro-meteorological services in Bhutan. In line with this, a workshop was held to review the first report on socio-economic value of climate, weather, water disaster preparedness and hydro-met services to Bhutanese society.
The project is to improve the capacity of the department of Hydro-Met Services and its stakeholders to manage and produce high quality water report, climate models, weather information and services for the Bhutanese society.
“… from the point of view of disaster management related to hydro-met event you need forecast, be it flood forecast or weather forecast, you need forecasting mechanism in place. So hydro-met services are very important,” said the Chief of planning division, Phuntsho Namgyal.
Experts also said the benefits of hydro-met services in Bhutan are most likely to be very high from the economic point of view.
“There is lots of value to the hydro power sector and also to tourism sector as there is possibilities to increase in number of tourist with the help of information provided by the DHMS,” said the Research Scientist from Finnish Meteorological Institute, Karoliina Pilli Sihvola. “Then we talk about the society as a whole, basic weather forecast and early warning system will have great impact on the life and livelihood and safety of the people and also to the economy.”
The grant will be used to strengthened hydro-met services which include weather and flood forecasting system among others.
