The 19th Integrated Workshop (IWS) of the Typhoon Committee (TC) was held at Lin-gang Center in Shanghai, China, from November 19 to 22, 2024. There are four working groups within TC: the Working Group on Meteorology (WGM), the Working Group on Hydrology (WGH), the Working Group on Disaster Risk Reduction (WGDRR), and the Training and Research Coordination Group (TRCG). In the 19th conference, the first three working groups met together to report on the progress of each group's Annual Operation Plan (AOP) and plans for 2025, which were also discussed by all participants at the plenary session.
The meeting was attended by approximately 160 participants from 11 of the 14 member countries and regions (China, Hong Kong, Macao, Japan, Lao PDR, Malaysia, the Philippines, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, and the United States), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), and the Typhoon Committee Secretariat (TCS). Japan’s delegation included representatives from the Water and Disaster Management Bureau of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), and the Infrastructure Development Institute (IDI), as well as Professor ONO Yuichi from Tohoku University, Associate Professor ITO Kosuke from Kyoto University, and two members from ICHARM, Senior Researcher MIYAMOTO Mamoru, the current chair of WGH, and Researcher TAKEGAWA Shinya.
On the first day, after opening remarks by TC’s secretary general and others, the Asia-Pacific Typhoon Collaborative Research Center (AP-TCRC) Forum was held, where three keynote speakers from Japan gave presentations. Miyamoto was among them, delivering a presentation titled “An Operational Flood Forecasting System with Improved Accuracy using Data Assimilation” and answering questions regarding the reliability evaluation of the analysis results. His presentation was well-received by the participants.
On the second day, technical presentations were made under the theme of “Strengthening the Value Chain within the UN EW4All Framework for the Typhoon Committee Region,” Among the two Japanese speakers was MARUYAMA Kazuki, the director for International Coordination of River Engineering of the Water and Disaster Management Bureau, MLIT, whose presentation was attracted a great deal of interest from the participants.
On the third day, each working group had a meeting separately. At the WGH meeting, Hong Kong and Vietnam, which did not participate in the October meeting in Nanjing, reported on the damage situation and response measures regarding the 2024 typhoons. They also discussed the 14th WGH, which is scheduled to be held in Guam in 2025 under the joint sponsorship of Japan and the United States. The meeting also included progress reports on the third phase of the project on the Synergized Standard Operating Procedures (SSOP) and reports on the nine annual operation plans for 2024 and new plans for 2025. On the final day, a plenary session was held after another round of working group meetings, and Miyamoto presented a summary of the WGH activities.
ICHARM, PWRI, and MLIT successfully demonstrated their international presence throughout the conference, and Japan was able to take the lead in strengthening international collaboration and technical exchanges among the TC members, especially in the area of hydrology. ICHARM will continue to lead interregional cooperation for water-related disaster risk reduction and resilience enhancement through TC and other international frameworks.
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during the APTC-RC Forum |
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