Coastal Flooding Forecast Strengthened in Indonesia

The five-year demonstration phase has just ended and will now develop into the Indonesian Coastal Inundation Forecasting System, which is expected to be operational by April 2019. It is hoped to improve communications of early warnings to the end-user and extend the forecasting system beyond Jakarta and Semarang-City. Consideration will also be given to integrating this system with a tsunami warning capability, thus enabling a full end-to-end coastal inundation Multi Hazard Early Warning System (MHEWS). <br />
<br />
Indonesia has just over 99,000 km of coastline: the third longest in the world. Sitting amongst three tectonically active plates and within the ‘Pacific Ring of Fire’, Indonesia faces many natural hazards, with devastating impacts. Coastal flooding is a major risk, as a result of extreme weather and high tides, and earthquake triggered tsunamis, as was highlighted yet again in 2018 with tragic results.<br />
<br />
Improving safety-related services is a fundamental priority of WMO. The Joint WMO-IOC Technical Commission for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM) and the WMO Commission for Hydrology (CHy) initiated the Coastal Inundation Forecasting Demonstration Project (CIFDP) in recognition of a growing global coastal population and related need to develop efficient early warning systems.<br />
<br />
The meeting in Bali, from 28 to 30 January, brought together representatives of different government agencies, end users and technical experts involved in developing the system and the end-user stakeholders, gathered with BMKG (Badan Meteorologi, Klimatologi, dan Geofisika of Indonesia) , WMO and international partners to share the results of 5 years of collaborative effort.