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Meteriological and Hydrological Services should play a key role in climate change
07 Jan 2017 at 02:52hrs | Views
MDC-T senior official Tapiwa Mashakada has said the Meteriological and Hydrological Services should play a key role in climate change disaster risk mitigation.
He said therefore there is need to transform Weather Services from mere departments to fully fledged Agencies which are independent and well funded.
"Most people shut their TV sets when forecasts are announced meaning that Met Services are only associated with temperatures and rainfall forecasts. Yet Met services can play a bigger role in the collection, analysis of weather information and produce data that is required by users especially in regard to climate change. Droughts and floods must be fore seen well in advance," he said.
"There is the rub. Most Met services do not have modern equipment to do data analysis and forecasting. This is often due lack of funding. This is why I suppose the transformation of Met departments into Met and Hydrological Agencies is long overdue. Currently the Zimbabwe Met Office is a department under the Ministry of Transport. I can see the rationale was to provide weather forecasts for aviation. But now i think this is narrow role."
Mashakada said thank fully out Met Services have diversified to provide weather services for the agriculture sector including fire hazard rating.
"But a lot still needs to be done in the area of climatology. I have just touched on Met services but there are so many government institutions that are wrongly mandated," he said.
He said therefore there is need to transform Weather Services from mere departments to fully fledged Agencies which are independent and well funded.
"Most people shut their TV sets when forecasts are announced meaning that Met Services are only associated with temperatures and rainfall forecasts. Yet Met services can play a bigger role in the collection, analysis of weather information and produce data that is required by users especially in regard to climate change. Droughts and floods must be fore seen well in advance," he said.
"There is the rub. Most Met services do not have modern equipment to do data analysis and forecasting. This is often due lack of funding. This is why I suppose the transformation of Met departments into Met and Hydrological Agencies is long overdue. Currently the Zimbabwe Met Office is a department under the Ministry of Transport. I can see the rationale was to provide weather forecasts for aviation. But now i think this is narrow role."
Mashakada said thank fully out Met Services have diversified to provide weather services for the agriculture sector including fire hazard rating.
"But a lot still needs to be done in the area of climatology. I have just touched on Met services but there are so many government institutions that are wrongly mandated," he said.
Source - Byo24News
