This Technology Transfer Advances Thailand's
- Nationally Determined Contribution to "strengthen climate modeling capacity while promoting collaboration among relevant agencies" as well as "strengthen disaster risk reduction and reduce population’s vulnerability to climate risk and extreme weather events through enhanced awareness, coordination and adaptive capacity of local communities".
Context
A growing body of empirical evidence suggests that climate change is likely to impact the agriculture and water resource management sector in Thailand significantly. The areas of concern include: reliability of water supply, the risk of flooding and droughts, impacts on health, agriculture, energy and aquatic ecosystems. Thailand is one of the world's major food exporters. It continues to rely heavily on rainfall as a major factor in the planning and management of irrigation projects and crop yields. The agricultural sector takes up 70% of the nation's total water supply. Hence, any climate change, especially in terms of overall precipitation levels and distribution patterns, carries huge consequences for the agricultural sector.
A key challenge for effective agriculture and water resource management in Thailand is the lack of adequate regional climate models, collection, and distribution of spatial and temporal meteorological and hydrological data. Thus, medium- to long-term plans and strategies toward climate change adaptation are difficult to initiate. As meteorological uncertainties increase further due to climate change, it is even more important for Thailand to set up a climate data centre
Assistance Requested
- Perform the technical assessments to select the appropriate instruments, models, and scope, for the NCDC.
- Provide tools and methodologies for downscaling climate based on the outcomes of the technical assessments.
- Build capacities of staffs from the agency managing the NCDC and other concerned agencies, in collection and distribution of climate data, preparing them to use and apply the data to climate models and adaptation strategies effectively. The training will be provided for the technical and managerial issues established in the feasibility study and the methodological framework.
Relevant Technologies and Approaches
- Downscaling of climate model projections
- Open source climate data and tools
- Climate change vulnerability assessment
Expected Benefits
Medium-term
- Provide invaluable data for the forecasting and early warning systems of the agriculture sector
- Synergize with the precision farming in agriculture sector
- Complement the seasonal climate prediction in water resource management sector
Long-term
- Raise Thailand as the hub of climate change knowledge and technology in the region
- Enhance the efficiency of domestic and international weather and climate data collections and exchange
- Provide a data network for all stakeholders and serve as an official information distributor to all stakeholders and agencies
- Recommend the climate mitigation strategies to tackle climate issues with higher precision
