NORTH AMERICAN DROUGHT FORUM 2010

April 20, 2010. Asheville, NC, USA.

Fernando Romero Coordinación General del Servicio Meteorológico Nacional

NADM. Status and National Drought Monitoring. México

NADM. Status and National Drought Monitoring. México

Present situation

Strengths and weaknesses

Deep changes in SMN structure / management and its implications for NADM

NORTH AMERICAN DROUGHT FORUM 2010

Present situation

Mexico’s NADM segment is very successful among many government agencies as well as private ones. They use the information contained in the narrative as well as the map itself for different purposes.

Interest and use have been growing up since about two years now.

For example, the Ministry of Health, INIFAP, some insurance companies like AGROASEMEX.

Present situation

There are in particular two agencies that right now use the NADM as a tool to support their making decisions process.

One deals with agriculture activities (PACC)

The other with civil protection (FONDEN)

During 2009 these federal programs, PACC (Support Program for Climatic Contingencies) and FONDEN (National Funds for Natural Disasters), used by the first time systematically the NADM as an input for their making decision process.

Present situation

Another important agency is CONAGUA itself.

During the last year, NADM has been used to provide images of an area in the central region of the country which is very important because it is where most of the water supplies for Mexico City come from:

The Cutzamala basin.

Present situation

Cuztamala has 3 dams which store a great percentage of the water supplied to Mexico City. If the system has low volume, it has deep implications for the population in some areas.NADM helped CONAGUA to support the decision of interrupt supply for specific periods of time in order to save water.

2010 vs 2009 y 2008

January

February

March

Jan 2009 Feb 2009 Mar 2010 Apr 2010

May 2009 Jun 2009 Jul 2010 Aug 2010

Sep 2009 Oct 2009 Nov 2010 Dec 2010

Evolution of Drought conditions in Mexico during 2009.

Present situation

SMN has received formal requests to include this product as part of the key indicators in several government programs, however, since NADM provides an analysis of drought conditions of end-of-month, this periodicity must be changed in order to meet the requirements that have been asked.

That is one of the challenges we have (we’ll talk about it in a few moments)

Strengths

Good coordination (in general) between all the parts involved in the process (gathering information , analysis process, map and text creation, etc.) at a local level.

There is also a good communication with our partners so in most of the cases, the map and text are issued on schedule.

In SMN we try to work in an “horizontal structure”, so most of the people can follow the process easily.

Weaknesses

Our team (6 people) have to produce / supervise the emission of more than a dozen different products, which are issued periodically (Climate reports, statistical analysis, monthly and seasonal forecasts, etc).

So, NADM activities must be performed in a very small time window, so we can go with the other products.

Not all the team members are fluent in English

Deep changes in the SMN structure

In September 2009, a new Director is appointed

In December 2009 , a report made by a WMO commission is issued and starts a long term process to improve the capabilities of SMN (organizational and technological).

In February 2009 a new structure is proposed which intends to strengthen the activities of SMN by improving the areas of Climatology and Meteorology.

Financial structure is also changed so SMN is now able to run its own budget.

Agreement between NOAA and CONAGUA

In February 2009 a new agreement between CONAGUA and NOAA was signed.

Right now, SMN is working with different specialists in the creation /or modification of different technical documents and strategies which will be included as appendix to the agreement.

NADM and Global Drought Assessment are to be included as two key elements.

Challenges for the middle and long term

Finally, SMN has been requested to develop a weekly drought monitor with similar capabilities as the US Drought Monitor.

The implications of this task are in many ways formidable to us, so we will need a lot of support from our partners before that happens.

Challenges for the middle and long term

Thanks for your attention!