Concept Note

Based on the climate change situation nowadays, the advanced organization has been lending support for achieving water security ahead. In 2003, UN had pointed an interagency mechanism on water security as in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), in which UN had forged a common approach to provide substantive coherence at water security project in term of regional and country levels. Continually in 2016, the UN has then placed a goal explicitly related to the integrated water resources management thought transboundary cooperation by 2030, known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

It is obviously shown that climate change has increasingly impact on several sectors in the global, especially a wide-ranging effect on environment system as an intensity of the weather and a high risk of water insecurity. According to Asian Development Bank Report, it demonstrated that water resources within Asia will be placed under enormous pressure and estimates indicate up to 3.4 billion people could be living in water-stressed areas of Asia by 2050.

At regional level, there are 2 challenges that ASEAN countries are now being threatened. Firstly, it can be expressed that the drought conditions have increasingly impacted on ASEAN. According to Weather and Climate Extremes Journal in 2015, it shows that the least developed countries in ASEAN have been suffering from the increasingly droughts and the dry conditions results in deficiencies of water as the same. Thus, an effort to enhance the effectiveness of water management resources was established as ASEAN Working Group on Water Resources Management (AWGWRM). Secondly, ASEAN region is also facing the result of climate change relating severe smog from forest fire every year, also this haze problem has aroused the implementation plan in solving transboundary pollution crisis by the collaboration of the ASEAN specialized meteorological service department from each country named as “the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution”.

Accordingly, weather modification is one mean to augment precipitation over the dry area and to dispel haze and smog severely affected by the drought or the burning of land. Therefore, the cooperation building up as seminar on weather modification is in accordance with those environmental agreements which can help to increase precipitation on the extremely dry condition from climate change and also is a measure to combat with a haze of air pollution issue.

Although the environmental action programmes about water resources management have been advocated though the mutual agreement for decades, it seem that this issue need virtually more concern and state responsibility about the drought and smog crisis across ASEAN countries. Meantime, this issue also engages in people’s living and health at individual level. Thus, weather modification is one important measure that can relieve this major challenge in a long term.

Since Thailand is the country that is proficient in Royal rainmaking technology for a long time, this technology was experimented and refined for 14 years until the first successful experiment in 1969. The operations have been continuously conducted along with technology research and development to sustain water security for agriculture, natural disaster mitigation and ecological preservation. Thus, Thailand would offer to host of ASEAN Regional Seminar on weather modification 2024 with an aim to build up a cumulative knowledge on weather modification technology as a wide array of activities that help to improve the solution on the drought and smog crisis among ASEAN countries in the future.

Series Project
The seminar programme can be divided into 8 tiers as follows.

1. It had been taken almost 30 years since the first seminar on “Weather Modification and Evaluation Techniques” was held in Chiang Mai province of Thailand in 1988 to share the experiences of weather modification by cloud seeding among ASEAN members and the second seminar namely the “Consultation Cloud Seeding Techniques” was followed at Bangkok in 1991.

2. The ASEAN workshop on weather modification was recommended by the 16thASEAN SCMG meeting and directed Thailand to be the host of the workshop in 1994. Unfortunately, the workshop was not held due to limited funding support and the reorganization of the DRRAA.

3. According to the 39th ASEAN SCMG meeting which was held on 3rd – 5th May 2017 in the Philippines, Thailand with the support of Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia, proposed the workshop on ASEAN Weather Modification to share their experiences in tropical cloud seeding and discuss further collaborative work in the field of weather modification within the region. The meeting adopted that Thailand would be hosting this workshop which would be held at the second quarter of 2018. The workshop was in accordance with the work plan of Meteorological and Geophysics, under the SCMG framework.

4. In 2019, as a further step of the 2018 workshop, the Training on Understanding of Cloud Nature and Weather Modification for Water Resources Management in ASEAN was organized to enhance the participants’ skill, transfer and exchange knowledge on weather modification, as well as promote collaboration in research and development of weather modification technology relating to sustainable water resources management in the region.

5. As agreed in the 41st meeting of the ASEAN SCMG held during 6 – 8 October 2019 in Singapore to put such collaboration on ASEAN platform, the ASEAN Weather Modification Centre (AWMC) would be established to collaborate among ASEAN Member States (AMS), with an intention to be a HUB for exchanging, discussing, and strengthening the community on weather modification among AMS and dialogue partners in order to further mitigate droughts and other water-security-related disasters to ensure well-being of ASEAN in a sustainable manner. The meeting further requested Thailand to provide and develop a concept note and term of reference TOR) on AWMC for working arrangement.

6. The latest meeting of the 44th meeting ASEAN SCMG held on 16 October 2023 at Bohol, Philippines endorsed the TOR of AWMC establishment and then shall be tabled to COSTI in 19 October 2023 for further endorsement. At the same meeting, Thailand by DRRAA proposed to host an ASEAN Regional Seminar on Weather Modification 2024, which is an implementation activity under AWMC cooperation.

7. The expected outcomes from the seminar are to share the current experiences/knowledge, seek for mutual collaborations in researching and developing weather modification technology and explore strategies for strengthening AWMC with the development of the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) for an achievement in water resources management and the air pollution at the regional level. Moreover, the individual training on the best practice of weather modification can be held to provide the specialized technology which AMS countries can learn and apply to their own technique in order to enhance the effectiveness of weather modification technology. This activity will be in line with MOA condition.

8. Further collaborative works in research and development and operation on weather modification will be carried out under AWMC cooperative framework with the aim of an achievement in water resources management and the air pollution at the regional level while the regular seminars should be held every 1-2 year to share and learn from other experience. This process can provide an indication of weather modification and help to refine its performance to address the environmental challenges further.

Objectives: