National Stakeholders of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, who will be the users of this product were invited to get the latest updates on SADMS and the work in progress to validate the system before it is made operational. This is a follow up activity of the Interactive workshop held at the end of Phase I of the project in Dhaka on 20 April 2015 where a beta version of the SADMS was launched.
The presenter was Dr Giriraj Amarnath, Senior Researcher - Remote Sensing and Water Resources from IWMI, who is a lead scientist working on the SADMS developments. Dr Amarnath indicated that the objective of the project is to develop a product that is applicable to the entire South Asia. IWMI with GWP SAS and with the rest of the partners is keen on working closely with the regional and country level stakeholders to validate the SADMS with the input from relevant National Agencies/end Users. He further highlighted the importance of evolving SADMS into a drought early warning system, which depends on taking the ownership of the product by National Agencies and the availability of funding. The presentation was followed with a question and answer session with comments and the participants’ recommendations.
Development of SADMS is a collaborative effort of IWMI, GWP SAS and World Meteorological Organization (WMO)/GWP Integrated Drought Management Programme (IDMP) and CGIAR Research programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). Birla Institute of Technology, India and Symbiosis Institute of Geoinformatics, India are the technical partners.