Pacific Islands - Climate Prediction Project

Pilot Project: Application of Climate Forecasting in Water Management

Objectives: To develop the capability of NMS staff to provide climatological information including forecasts of droughts and their likely impacts on water resources to water agencies and other stakeholders through the enhancement of the SCOPIC software package.

Specific aims of the Pilot Project are to:

  1. Further develop SCOPIC to include the capability of calculating one or more drought indices based on historical and forecast monthly rainfall data.
  2. Further develop the SCOPIC report generator to include a range of graphs and tables for selected climate and water resources data to highlight the link between climate and water resource availability.
  3. Evaluate relationships between the drought index and key water resource parameters in selected countries (e.g. streamflow, groundwater salinity and rainwater storage).
  4. Evaluate whether direct forecasts (using SCOPIC) of key water resource parameters (with long good quality records and good relationships with rainfall data) can be made.
  5. Train selected NMS's in the use of the enhanced SCOPIC software package.
  6. Improve the understanding of both NMS's and water agencies in selected countries in the application of the drought index forecasts to drought planning.
  7. Assist the NMS's to develop forecasts of droughts and likely impacts on water resources for dissemination to water agencies and other key stakeholders (e.g. media and the wider community).
  8. Strengthen links between the NMS and water agencies through enhanced water resources reporting and information dissemination capacity in SCOPIC.

Outcomes under Phase 1: Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands were selected for this project. The assessment of the climate and water data was carried out, and analysed on the new SCOPIC (which now includes drought indices tool) and workshop conducted in both PICs.

Outcomes under Phase 2:

  • Follow-up was conducted in Solomon Islands from 23rd to 27th July 2007.
  • Follow-up was done for Vanuatu in May 2008.
  • Similar studies were identified for Kiribati, Cook Islands, Tuvalu and Tonga after feasibility studies were conducted in 2007 and 2008.
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