Project Background

The Asia Regional Resilience to a Changing Climate (ARRCC) programme, which commenced in September 2018, is a four-year programme aiming to strengthen provision and uptake of weather and climate services across the South Asia Region. Whilst regional in nature, ARRCC has an emphasis on the most vulnerable countries in the region, primarily Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
ARRCC focuses across all meteorological timescales (weather, seasonal, climate). The project activities aim to build climate & environmental resilience by improving the application and access to weather and climate services at regional to national levels. In addition, the programme will support the development of new technologies and innovative approaches to help vulnerable communities apply and use warnings and forecasts to better prepare for climate-related shocks.
As part of the ARRCC Strengthening Climate Information Partnership in South Asia (SCIPSA) work package and in collaboration with Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM); Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (RIMES) and UK Met Office (UKMO) stakeholder consultations were organized in March 2019 and at the National Monsoon Forum in April 2019. A further consultation meeting was conducted on 24th November 2019 involving RIMES, DHM and National Agricultural Research Council (NARC). This was to select the pilot locations in Nepal for the development of a prototype Decision Support System (DSS) and for linking a range of forecasts products from DHM for application in the agriculture sector.
Two districts Rupandehi and Arghakhanchi in Province 5 were selected as pilot sites. Province 5 have very suitable conditions for agriculture and, DHM has its regional office and NARC has its National level commodity program as National Wheat Research Program (NWRP) in Rupandehi. To discuss the requirements from the field level and consult stakeholders in the co-development process, it was decided to have field visit and stakeholder’s consultation meeting in Rupandehi district. This was in collaboration with representatives from DHM, NARC focal person at pilot sites, NWRP, district Department of Agriculture (DOA), Agriculture Knowledge Center (AKC), municipal government (to link with farmers), farmers from both pilot districts Arghakhanchi and Rupandehi, RIMES and the UK Met Office. Through series of consultation meetings and interactive exercises with users details related for following was identified: current status of access to weather and climate information, the decisions made across the agricultural calendar and user’s current status and requirements related to weather and climate forecast information.