ECMWF’s Council has approved the provision of ECMWF real-time products to international organisations including UN and European Commission agencies for operational purposes to further support World Meteorological Organization (WMO) programmes and activities. The move comes in addition to providing the WMO Additional dataset to the national meteorological and hydrological services (NMHS) of WMO countries, in June and December 2017 (https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/datasets/wmo-additional).
Since the approval, UN and European Commission agencies such as the United Nations World Food Programme, the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG-ECHO) have been using ECMWF data for their operational activities, and more recently UNICEF has requested access to ECMWF’s ecCharts platform for operational support.
Benefits
One example of the benefits of providing data to the various agencies is the Automated Disaster Analysis and Mapping (ADAM) alert system, which is compiled and distributed by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). The emergency response dashboard is issued by the WFP to the humanitarian community to support regions that might be impacted by environmental hazards, such as tropical storms, flash flooding, and earthquakes.
The application was started in 2015 as an earthquake alert response. In 2017, it was expanded to monitor the impact of tropical storms by using data from several authoritative sources such as, among others, the Joint Research Centre, the US Geological Survey, the World Bank, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and WFP databases. Since June 2018, the WFP has used ECMWF deterministic total precipitation data in combination with tropical cyclone data to show the expected rainfall for the next five days for key cities that may be affected by a tropical storm (see figure). ADAM enables WFP and other humanitarian agencies to make well-informed decisions and to carry out more informed preparation for emergencies, including knowing exactly where to position food or identifying different access routes to critical areas.
“Timeliness of response is one of the most critical factors to save lives in emergencies,” says Project Coordinator Andrea Amparore of the WFP Emergency Division. “Just seconds after an earthquake occurs, or days before a tropical storm makes landfall, ADAM provides the right information, to the right people, at the right time.”
Since 2017, the WFP has issued dozens of dashboards to about 5,000 registered users, covering all major tropical cyclones worldwide, including Idai (Mozambique, March 2019), Michael (Caribbean, October 2018), and Maria (Caribbean, September 2017). In 2020, the WFP received the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to combat hunger and improve conditions for peace.
The ADAM dashboard is distributed to registered users of humanitarian organisations to receive the dashboards directly to their inbox in real time. Registration is free (https://geonode.wfp.org/adam.html) for users working for humanitarian organisations, governments, and universities. Moreover, in order to allow the general public to reach the service, ADAM dashboards are also published on Twitter (@WFP_ADAM) in response to emergency events.