Workshop on “Advancing the implementation of the Latin American Flood and Drought Monitor at the National Level

A workshop was held on 23-24 May 2016, Santiago de Chile on “Advancing the implementation of the Latin American Flood and Drought Monitor at the National Level”. The Latin American and Caribbean Flood and Drought Monitor (LACFDM) is a product developed by Princeton University in association with UNESCO IHP’s G-WADI program, ICIWaRM, and others. Justin Sheffield, Eric Wood and Nate Chaney of Princeton University introduced the LACFDM to the participants.

The workshop was sponsored by “Enhancing Natural HAzards resilience iN South America” (ENHANS). ENHANS is a project that seeks to train a critical mass of experts to utilize and further develop the tools and implement methods and tools to tackle rapidly varying vulnerability and disaster risks and to raise awareness among communities and reduce their risk from natural hazards while promoting Regional Cooperation. It is financed by the Government of Flanders, Kingdom of Belgium’s “Flanders UNESCO Science Trust Fund” (FUST).

The meeting produced a consensus to do two case studies moving forward: 1) The General Directorate of Water (Chile) will work on a study in the Bio Bio Valley (Concepcion), or the Rio Teno, or the Cachapoal watershed. And 2) the National Meteorological and Hydrological Service of Peru (SENAMHI) proposed the Vilcanota Watershed for a case study on flood monitoring. ICIWaRM plans to assist by partially funding a post-doc at Princeton to assist with the transformation of the continental scale monitor to a more high-resolution version.