MARINEMET: New equipment installed

The combined Tide Gauges and Automatic Weather Stations, and the independent Automatic Weather Stations (AWSs) planned in the last phase of the MARINEMET Pilot Project (http://www.afrimet.org/marinemet/index.php/en/documents/doc_download/27-tor-pilot-project) have been acquired and installed (SUTRON corporation) in the beneficiary countries:

In the near future, the data of these equipments will be available at www.afrimet.org/marinemet/

MARINEMET improvements

Taking into account the suggestions received, the following changes have been introduced in the MARINEMET website (http://www.afrimet.org/marinemet/):

• Loop of images (animation) for the deep sea water modelling products
• Improvement of the availability of the real time remote sensing products (6-7 hours earlier than before)
• Improvement of the availability of the deep sea water modelling products (1 hour earlier than before)
• Correction of errors in the display of the columns in the deep sea water modelling products (the last column on the right didn't appear)

We hope these improvements are useful for you.

West Africa Marine Meteorology Project

MARINEMET Pilot Project was a follow-up of the Las Palmas Action Plan and was supported in the framework of the Spanish cooperation in close collaboration with WMO. It was launched in Dakar (Senegal) in July, 2009. Senegal, The Gambia, Mauritania and Cape Vert are the countries involved in it. The project will contribute to the needs expressed by the countries in the region to improve marine meteorological services for maritime safety and fisheries management.

MARINEMET’s main philosophy is both technology and knowledge transfer, with the aim of helping the countries become autonomous by the time the pilot project (which lasts for four years) is completed. Therefore, new equipment and different types of training provision are aspects of the project which are under consideration.

The Spanish State-owned Ports Body (Organismo Público Puertos del Estado) and the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria University (ULPGC) are working in collaboration with the Spanish Meteorological Agency (Agencia Estatal de Meteorología) on the project.

Marinemet Project Web Site  >>

METAGRI: Workshop on evaluation of the METAGRI OPS project and on preparation of new project METAGRI SERVICES

The workshop was held in Abidjan ((Ivory Coast), from 23 to 27 November 2015, with participation of representatives of the meteorological services of the 17 participating countries (16 countries members of the Conference AFRIMET and Chad) together with WMO and AEMET.

The METAGRI pilot project was launched in 2008 in the context of the programme of cooperation AFRIMET of AEMET and WMO. Funded by AEMET, 160 educational roving seminars were held until 2011, and about 3500 raingauges were distributed among farmers from the 16 countries members of the Conference AFRIMET. The second phase, METAGRI OPS, has being mainly funded by the Government of Norway, through WMO, although the AFRIMET program was still linked to the project and offered some support. From 2012 to 2015, 260 new seminars have been held, and more than 4500 rain gauges have been provided to the farmers of the 17 participating countries. Technical training has also been provided to the meteorological services, and the encounter with the media for the dissemination of meteorological information has been fostered.

During the workshop the successes, difficulties and lessons learned have been examined, and the lines of work of the new METAGRI SERVICES project have been outlined. The new project will be submitted to the next Conference of Directors AFRIMET which will soon be convened.

More information can be found on the webpage of the workshop,

https://sites.google.com/a/wmo.int/metagri-2015/

METAGRI : WMO - EUMETSAT course on satellite products utilization in agro- meteorology

The third edition of the course  was held in Ouagadougou ( Burkina Faso), organized by WMO and EUMETSAT , under the METAGRI -OPS project. The two previous editions were held in Niamey (Niger) in 2012 and in Accra (Ghana) in 2013. This edition, in French, was attended by representatives of meteorological services in Benin , Burkina Faso , Cameroon , Ivory Coast , Chad , Guinea , Guinea Bissau , Mali , Mauritania , Niger , Senegal and Togo.

The course, aimed at the specific needs of the region, had teachers of institutions who are active in this field: WMO, EUMETSAT, Land SAF, TAMSAT, JRC, FAO, University of Lisbon. AEMET contributed with specific teachers to present the Barcelona Dust Forecast Centre and Nowcasting SAF products and some experiences in distance learning.

The course, that was very active , has allowed students to share their experiences and challenges in this field of satellite agro- meteorology.

Find here more photos of the event.

All the course’s presentations are available at AFRIMET ‘s files.

Training Courses on crop model SARRA-H

Training Courses on crop model SARRA-H, second edition in Banjul (Gambia) and third edition in Abidjan (Ivory Coast).

Find the report of these courses at AFRIMET’s files.
Learn more about SARRA-H at http://sarra-h.teledetection.fr/SARRAH_Home_En.html

Banjul, 02 - 2014

Abidjan, 03 - 2014

METAGRI: Training for the operational implementation of the SARRA-H crop model

Training for the operational implementation of the SARRA-H crop model in the countries of the Sahel.
METAGRI OPERATIONAL Project of the Conference of Directors of the West African Meteorological Services, AFRIMET

>> Related documents

METAGRI Project: Final Statistics

>> Related documents

West Africa Agriculture Meteorology Project

Following Las Palmas Action Plan an Expert Meeting on Agrometeorology in the Service of West African Agriculture, organized by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the State Meteorological Agency of Spain (AEMET), at the CILSS Regional Centre for Agricultural Meteorology and Hydrology (AGRHYMET) in Niamey, Niger, from 23 to 24 April 2008.

Twenty experts from Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Spain, WMO and from AGRHYMET and the African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD), both based in Niamey, participated in the Expert Meeting on Agrometeorology in the Service of West African Agriculture. A new initiative was launched to help the rural communities in West Africa make better use of weather and climate information to increase productivity of their cropping systems.

WMO and AEMET propose to distribute hundreds of low-cost raingauges to volunteer farmers in the five Sahelian countries and train them in using the real-time rainfall data for making operational decisions on field preparations ahead of the rainy season, sowing, fertilizer application, intercultivation, harvesting etc.

WMO and AEMET, in collaboration with the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) of five Sahelian countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal) are being organize at this stage (November 2008) about 40 one-day Roving Seminars on Weather, Climate and Farmers in the five countries to sensitize the farmers about the weather and climate information and it’s applications in operational farm management. It is expected that over 10,000 farmers in the five countries will be benefited by this initiative already being implemented successfully. First Roving Seminars took place in Koulikoro (Mali), on September 2008.

Countries Emerging from Conflict and Natural Disasters Project

In agreement with the Las Palmas Action Plan (2007) and the Niamey Action Plan (2008), the AFRIMET cooperation programme especially supports short-term capability development of Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Togo. This project provides training, instruments, and other necessary equipment needed to obtain adequate meteorological and hydrological services that can contribute to these countries’ socio-economic development. Weather instruments, office equipment and training courses in their countries and abroad is to be provided.
Guinea was included among the project’s beneficiary countries after the Banjul Action Plan (2010).

Parc Météo, Direction Génerale de la Météo du Togo

Management

In agreement with the Las Palmas Action Plan (2007) and Niamey Action Plan (2008), AFRIMET promotes actions aimed at strengthening the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS) capabilities in informing, campaigning and marketing, with the aim of improving the NMHSs political and financial support on a national level. The programme provides the NMHSs with strategies for gaining political support, participating in national processes that guarantee funding, and also contributes to creating international funding programmes based on governmental support. It also aims at improving existing and potential user groups' identification and mobility.

An e-learning Management platform was launched during the Management Creation and Capability workshop held in Dakar on 15th-17th July 2009. + info

A Resource Mobilisation workshop was held before the Banjul Conference (2010). + info

HEALTHMET: Workshop on Climate and Health in Dakar (Senegal).

A workshop has been held in Dakar from 19 to 21 July, co-organized by the National Agency of Civil Aviation and Meteorology (ANACIM) of Senegal and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States, with participation of meteorological and health services authorities coming from four countries in the region (Senegal, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso), as well as national and international experts.

The objective of the workshop was to strengthen the relationship and cooperation between meteorological and health services of the participating countries, aiming to identify and develope weather and climate information products to assist decision-making by health authorities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) are heavily involved through the Global Framework for Climate Services (MMSC) in the development and implementation of such Early Warning Systems (EWS).

The HEALTHMET project of Afrimet has been represented at the meeting by its coordinator, along with the regional expert and focal point of the project in Burkina Faso. Throughout its history, the project HEALTHMET has facilitated the training of technicians of meteorological services in the region on issues such as the detection of atmospheric dust and climate-health relationships, and has promoted the creation of working groups on national Climate-Health in Mauritania and Burkina Faso.

HEALHMET projet has been presented to the participants of this workshop and partnerships with NOAA and with meteorological and health services of the participating countries have been identified, with the common aim of promoting the creation of national SATs in the countries concerned, in line with the results of the Conference of Nouakchott.

HEALTHMET: AFRIMET participates in the 1st Africa / Middle East Expert Meeting and Workshop on the Health Impact of Airborne Dust.

This meeting, organized by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Programme for the Environment (UNEP), the European Agency for the exploitation of meteorological satellites (EUMETSAT) and AEMET, was held in Amman (Jordan), from 2 to 5 November, with the participation of representatives from the fields of meteorology, the environment and the health of 16 countries, together with international experts.

AFRIMET’s HEALTHMET pilot project has joined the initiative with the participation of representatives of the meteorological services of the two countries that have already launched their national Climate and Health Working Groups (CHWG), Mauritania and Burkina Faso.

The meeting has focused on assessing the state of knowledge on the subject, and on promoting measures to tackle the problem of pollution by mineral dust from the sanitary point of view.

The Healthmet project has been presented at the meeting. This pilot project, which aims to strengthen links and cooperation between the meteorological and health services in the countries involved, launched in 2011 the national CHWGs in Mauritania and Burkina Faso. After a period of inactivity, in 2015 the project is has approached the ClimHealth Africa initiative and the joint office WHO/WMO of the MMSC. Participation in this workshop is intended to be the takeoff of the re-launch of the CHWGs and the implementation of activities aimed firstly to evaluate the data and available resources and needs, on the way to the establishment of early warning systems for health services.

Spain leads the world prediction of dust and sand storms through the first operating center in the world recognized by the WMO. The Barcelona Dust Forecast Center (BDFC), created in February of 2014, produces and distributes daily predictions of atmospheric mineral dust for North Africa, Middle East and Europe. The Center is managed by AEMET and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC). These predictions are essential to establishing national early warning systems allowing the mitigation of the adverse effects of mineral dust.

During the workshop, the city of Amman lived an exceptionally intense episode of airborne dust. Data and forecast were discussed at the meeting.  

You can find the presentations of Mauritania, Burkina Faso and HEALTHMET at AFRIMET documents’ archive.

Prediction of meningococcal meningitis incidence trend in Burkina Faso and Niger for year 2014.

It’s available in Afrimet’ files the prediction of meningococcal meningitis incidence trend in Burkina Faso for year 2014 prepared by the Working Group on Climate and Health from Burkina. Find the English version and French version.

More information on the method of work here  

Creation of the Burkina Faso National Climate-Health Work Group

On the 15 and 16 of Decembre 2011 the workshop for the launch of the Burkina Faso National Climate-Health Work Group (NCHWG) was held in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), being Burkina the second of the countries participating in the project HEALTHMET that sets up the NCHWG.

Creation of the Mauritanian national Climate-Health Work Group

On the 28 and 29 of June 2011, the workshop for the launch of the Mauritanian national Climate-Health Work Group (CHWG) was held in Nouakchott (Mauritania) being the first of the countries participating in the project HEALTHMET, set up by CHWG.

>> Related Documents

Strengthening capabilities to create links between meteorological, climatological and health services

In agreement with the Niamey Action Plan (2008), AFRIMET launched the Pilot Project for strengthening the links between meteorological, climatological and health services. The Plan was finalised in Niamey (Niger) during a workshop aimed at defining how interinstitutional Climate and Health Work Groups could be created in each of the participating countries: Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. The workshop also aimed to propose a project plan to be sent to the Directors' Conference.

The Banjul Conference Action Plan (2010) approved the Healthmet project, with the aim of promoting National Climate-Health Work Groups' development. Two more countries were also included in the Project: Mauritania and Nigeria.

Previous activities:

- The Burkina Faso and Niger local Focal Points (Healthmet Project) attended the Climate Information for Public Health course at the New York IRI Summer Institute, from 17th to 28th May 2010.
>> Related documents

- The Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Nigeria focal points attended the SDS-WAS Products course in Barcelona (Spain), from 15th to 19th November 2010.
>> Related documents