Bangladesh has a population of about 170 million people. It has the world's largest delta which gives fertile soil but large annual flooding, also because most of the country is below 12 meters above sea level. Besides flooding, Bangladesh is vulnerable to tropical cyclones that form over the Bay of Bengal, as well as heavy thunderstorms, drought, earthquakes, erosion and tsunamis.
MET Norway act as peer-advisors to Bangladesh in the SOFF program.
Our other project in Bangladesh is Sarepta, “Institutional support and capacity building for Weather and Climate Services”. The project started in 2023 and is funded by Norad.
The project is a continuation of an earlier project.
Map of Bangladesh (from Google Maps)
We collaborate with Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) which is the national meteorological institute in Bangladesh. BMD has the national responsibility for weather forecasting and climate services in Bangladesh. Based on their needs, and in collaboration with them, our common goal is to increase the quality of weather forecasting and climate services, strengthen the country's preparedness and prevention capacity in relation to the forces of nature, and improve the ability to adapt important national infrastructure to climate change. The climate challenges in the region are great and the work aims to put the partner institutions in the best possible position to provide useful services to both public administration and the general population. As a part of the projects the BMD and MET Norway have co-published two climate reports:
The work in Sarepta Bangladesh has three major themes, where two of them are strongly interlinked. The first theme is improving the forecasting, this is done by integrating Diana in the workflow of the meteorologists, and extensive instructions to the meteorologists at BMD on how to use Diana. Interlinked with this is the theme of technical improvements. So far the technical improvements have been focused towards their current setup and the data flow in the current setup. From 2024 a new computer facility is planned to be operational at BMD and the work in this facility will focus on integrating the new system into the workflow. The third theme is a combined theme of climate services and verification.
In the rice field
