Ministers from BRICS countries will share experiences on flood risk management.
BRICS ministers for disaster management will hold a meeting in Udaipur next week where two distinct issues -- flood risk management and forecasting of extreme weather events in the context of changing climate -- will be discussed threadbare.
Ministers from BRICS countries -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- will share experiences on flood risk management particularly with regard to flood risk assessment, flood forecasting, early warning and emergency response.
The delegates will share experiences on current systems in each country for forecasting extreme weather events, heat and cold waves and episodes of extreme rainfall, particularly in context of a changing climate.
They will also identify opportunities for collaboration between institutions of respective BRICS countries in the area of flood risk management and extreme weather-related events, an official release said.
The meeting on August 22-23 will also focus challenges for disaster risk management, mainstreaming disaster risk reduction in key development sectors, capacity building at local level and strengthening of response mechanism.
The meeting is a follow up of the first meeting of the BRICS ministers for disaster management convened by the Russian Federation in St Petersburg on April 19-20.
Recognising the common challenge posed by natural and man-made disasters, BRICS countries have identified disaster management as an important area of collaboration.
The Ufa Declaration signed by BRICS Nations at the 7th BRICS Summit on July 9, 2015, identified the need to promote cooperation in preventing and developing responses to emergency situations.
The Declaration also acknowledged the fruitful discussions on natural disasters within the context of BRICS cooperation in science, technology and innovation. It also reiterated BRICS commitment to mitigate the negative impact of climate change.
All the five BRICS countries have signed the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. They are also parties to the adoption of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in March, 2015 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September 2015. A number of SDGs have specific targets related to Disaster Risk Management (DRM).
During the Udaipur meeting, technical sessions with key thrust areas will be held that include forecasting and early warning on floods and extreme weather events, key early warning challenges, highlights of recent scientific and technical developments.
Other areas are: lessons learnt for ensuring last mile connectivity/community level action on early warning, disaster risk in a changing climate, emerging disaster risks as a result of climate change, DRM practices evolving in view of emerging disaster risks in a changing climate.