The Office of International Activities of the National Weather Service (NWS) is providing technical assistance to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) to minimize flood-related loss of life and property in Asia by transferring United States data and technologies to Asian countries, and training counterparts. The cornerstone of NOAA assistance is cooperation with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to integrate complementary technologies to mitigate the negative aspects of floods and simplify their application for developing-world counterparts. NOAA's operational responsibilities include weather monitoring-nationally as well as globally via geostationary and polar-orbiting satellites-and river and flood forecasting, whereas USGS operational responsibilities include hydrologic monitoring and the application of spatially based technologies for thematic assessment and mapping. This cooperation among OFDA, NOAA, and USGS is multiyear and was formalized in 2003 under the Asia Flood Network (AFN) initiative. In subsequent years, the Hydrologic Research Center- A Non-Profit Hydrologic Research organization-has joined the partnership, principally in preparing a regional flash-flood guidance system for the Lower Mekong River Basin.
Floods are among the most devastating natural disasters in Asia, and OFDA provides support for programs to mitigate the adverse impacts of floods through strengthening flood forecasting and warning for populations at risk. AFN seeks to identify and fill gaps in end-to-end flood forecasting and early warning, while complementing other OFDA-funded early warning and mitigation activities in the region. In July 2001, the USGS and NOAA began providing weather-satellite-based, 24-hour rainfall estimates and short-term forecasts of rainfall to the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an international river basin organization sponsored by Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Since before the launch of AFN, NOAA and USGS also have provided technical assistance in establishing a flood-information system to the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), an intergovernmental organization in Asia in which Board of Directors represent inter alia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Nepal, and Pakistan.
The AFN is intended to strengthen the capacity of regional and national hydrometeorological institutions in climate, weather, and flood forecasting, while directly involving communities at risk in reducing vulnerability to hydrometeorological hazards. In cooperation with regional and national partners in Asia, USGS and NOAA jointly implement AFN activities to further OFDA's flood-mitigation goals.
Specific NOAA and USGS activities in support of AFN include:
Ongoing upgrades to daily satellite rainfall estimates (SRE) with technical coordination with their member countries from MRC and ICIMOD.
US technology presentations and briefings at MRC Annual Flood Forums, which are meetings of MRC, MRC-riparian, and international participants that focus on aspect of flood management and mitigation, 2002-2007.
Conducting SRE workshops and applications in Bangkok, Thailand (April 19-22, 2005) and Katmandu, Nepal (June 6-10, 2005). These were followed by an additional workshop (July 3-7, 2006) in Katmandu that launched a cooperative program to validate SREs in South Asia with ground-truth data.
Participation in the International Workshop on Flash-Floods Management and Sustainable Development in the Himalayas, held in Lhasa, Peoples Republic of China (October 24-28, 2005). This was followed up by the Consultative Workshop on Flash Flood Management and Sustainable Development in the Himalayan Region in Katmandu, Nepal (December 4-5, 2006) in which specific plans for pilot flash-flood warning systems in China, Nepal, and Pakistan were discussed
Conducting a workshop on Flash-Flood Guidance (FFG), in Bangkok, Thailand. (May 30-31,2005)
Scheduled activities include:
Launch of the development of a Mekong Flash-Flood Guidance System (summer 2007)
Installing capacity to make regional SREs at MRC and ICIMOD centers (fall 2007)
Applications of SRE for drought management in the Mekong River Basin.
Further integration USGS Geographic Information System-based hydrologic models into NOAA flood forecasting systems (ongoing) to prepare a “hybrid” river forecast system that is suitable for application in parts of Asia where conventional hydrologic and meteorological monitoring networks are sparse.
The principal output is enhanced capacities of hydrometeorological, disaster-response, and regional organizations to monitor, forecast, and issue flood-related information to Asian communities at risk of floods.
weather.gov 
The Office of International Activities of the National Weather Service (NWS) is providing technical assistance to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) to minimize flood-related loss of life and property in Asia by transferring United States data and technologies to Asian countries, and training counterparts. The cornerstone of NOAA assistance is cooperation with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to integrate complementary technologies to mitigate the negative aspects of floods and simplify their application for developing-world counterparts. NOAA's operational responsibilities include weather monitoring-nationally as well as globally via geostationary and polar-orbiting satellites-and river and flood forecasting, whereas USGS operational responsibilities include hydrologic monitoring and the application of spatially based technologies for thematic assessment and mapping. This cooperation among OFDA, NOAA, and USGS is multiyear and was formalized in 2003 under the Asia Flood Network (AFN) initiative. In subsequent years, the Hydrologic Research Center- A Non-Profit Hydrologic Research organization-has joined the partnership, principally in preparing a regional flash-flood guidance system for the Lower Mekong River Basin.
Floods are among the most devastating natural disasters in Asia, and OFDA provides support for programs to mitigate the adverse impacts of floods through strengthening flood forecasting and warning for populations at risk. AFN seeks to identify and fill gaps in end-to-end flood forecasting and early warning, while complementing other OFDA-funded early warning and mitigation activities in the region. In July 2001, the USGS and NOAA began providing weather-satellite-based, 24-hour rainfall estimates and short-term forecasts of rainfall to the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an international river basin organization sponsored by Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Since before the launch of AFN, NOAA and USGS also have provided technical assistance in establishing a flood-information system to the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), an intergovernmental organization in Asia in which Board of Directors represent inter alia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Nepal, and Pakistan.
