approach

A national system for WWCS provision and up-take

Lack of supply of Weather, Water and Climate Services (WWCS), compounded by lack of effective demand for WWCS, has thus far impeded the provision of WWCS across the ‘last mile’ to rural communities in Tajikistan. Given limited public budget for the Hydrometeorology Agency of the Committee for Environmental Protection under the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan (Tajik Hydromet), a citizen- inclusive system for provision and uptake of WWCS is most promising.

In a country with a topography as pronounced as in Tajikistan, a dense network of observations is indispensable for effective WWCS provision at the local level. An increased density of observations can additionally improve the quality of national weather forecasts, through their assimilation into the computationally intensive routines of weather forecasting and by enabling a localized post-processing of raw forecasts (currently received by Tajik Hydromet through a contract with ECMWF, together with satellite-based products).

In this project, a network of reliable but low-cost micro weather stations will be installed and combined with citizen observations of weather, soil, rivers and snow, where local farmers and communities are remunerated[^3] for their service as data providers. Given prominence of female headed households within rural communities, owing to work migration of males to other former Soviet Republics, the project implicitly recognizes the need for a gendered lens in implementation. When combined with building local capacity for simple maintenance and upkeep of these stations and observations, this approach in the mid-term allows for installation of hundreds of stations across the country and transmitting their measurements and observations to Tajik Hydromet. This will enable the provision of effective WWCS on the ground and at the same time improving national and local weather forecasts and derived services. These stations, due to their low costs and multiple applications from local to national levels, including commercial purposes, are envisioned to be economically sustainable. There is obviously a way to go from observations to improved forecasts and WWCS, and the scarce public funding of Tajik Hydromet has so far not allowed for having the required capacities and processes in place. This project therefore initially focusses on simple WWCS that can be easily derived from the low-cost and citizen observations. These shall trigger development of more comprehensive technical systems within Tajik Hydromet to expand their portfolio on WWCS.

Micro weather stations in combination with citizen observations, collected and transmitted via a Smartphone app or SMS, thus provide an important leverage for improving the resilience of rural communities through provision and uptake of WWCS, and generally for developing the WWCS sector in Tajikistan. This backbone of observations, to be owned, operated and maintained by Tajik Hydromet, will be instrumental for the expansion of Tajik Hydromet towards a service-providing agency with new sources of revenue from private and public clients. For example, the resulting improved early warning capacities will enable the Committee on Emergency Situations and Civil Defense (CoESCD) to transform from a reactive into a proactive committee, an urgently needed development given the scarce resources under which this committee operates. Equally important will be forecasts to support farmers in effective decision making for planting, harvesting, irrigation and pest management – an area that has been essentially lacking since the disbanding of the Soviet collective farm system.

Notwithstanding the many concerns over land use management practices undertaken during the Soviet period, there is much to be learned from how the Soviets integrated science, research and practical application at the level of the farm field. While the state farms no longer exist, the concept of a dehkan farm association and the existence of water user associations lend themselves to similar coordination structures for ensuring efficiency in application. Equally important, and of significance to SDC investments in country, are the evolving river basin organizations that have been formed under the ongoing water sector reform. The project will also endeavor to understand how these organizations can potentially play a role in coordinating the acquisition of data and knowledge as well as towards engagement in effective systems for dissemination into local communities. The project, therefore, implicitly delves into an area of water sector reform with implications for effective coordination between water and agricultural sector reforms.

Provision of WWCS can only take place sustainably when backed by a concrete demand for such services, which results from a tangible value for the users – private, public and state. The project will develop awareness of the value of these services and create the necessary processes at community and higher levels (e.g., recommendations for when to harvest; improved efficiency in irrigation systems; improved real-time risk assessments for snow avalanches). Importantly, this system breaks the traditional linear paradigm of WWCS delivery by a national hydromet agency for uptake by any user: Tajik Hydromet in the first place receives (and owns) weather observations from local users and, in return, provides them with improved weather forecasts and other WWCS (delivered through a Smartphone app or SMS)[^4].

This approach ostensibly renders Tajikistan as the first country where citizens substantially contribute to the ability of Tajik Hydromet to, in return, provide them with WWCS, establishing a circular value chain of WWCS provision and uptake.

[^3]: The project remunerates these data providers during its lifespan. In parallel, business models for WWCS provision and uptake are developed, which in the longer term cover these costs thereby ensuring that the equipment is sustainably and properly maintained after the project.

[^4]: Underlying business models need to be developed during implementation, but one obvious avenue would be a subscription-based system where farmers and individuals would pay a modest fee for more accurate and location specific weather forecasts and WWCS. How the national agencies approach the dissemination of alerts for extreme events remains moot at this point, in terms of whether this will be a public service (as it should be) or fee based (charged to CoESCD by Tajik Hydromet) – a question to be addressed during the inception phase.

Summary

Summarizing the above, the core activities required to bridge the ‘last mile’ of WWCS provision and uptake include:

• Awareness raising of the potential of WWCS for DRR, especially at the local community level
• Close collaboration with and between Tajik government institutions (Tajik hydromet, CoESCD, MoA...) and with ongoing related projects such as the ‘Central Asia Hydrometeorology Modernization Project’ (CAHMP)
• Increased density of weather, water, soil and snow observations through community mobilization, and integration with existing observations
• Inducing demand for WWCS within different sectors at local to national/regional levels
• Provision of tailored WWCS
• Business models for WWCS provision and uptake that ensure mutually compatible incentives for all providers and users of WWCS including Tajik Hydromet, CoESCD, MoA, district administrations, national mobile phone service providers and, of course, local communities and individuals therein.