Hanoi (VNA) – A workshop on ways to improve Vietnam’s marine warning and forecastcapacity is taking place in Hanoi from October22-25 as part of activities in the cooperation framework between the VietnamMeteorological and Hydrological Administration (VMHA) and the NorwegianMeteorological Institute.

Addressing the event, Vice General Director of the VMHA Hoang Duc Cuong, saidthe administration has cooperated with the Norwegian institute since 2013 to carryout cooperation activities to better capacity for its staff.

The Norwegian institute has directly supported forecasters fromhydro-meteorological stations under the VMHA in coastal areas in using the Dianaforecasting software and theRegional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) and theOpen source framework for ocean trajectory modelling – OpenDrift.

According to Cuong, the VMHA and meteorological and hydrological stations incoastal areas have applied technologies to forecast tidal surges caused bystorms and monsoon, spread of pollutants and floating objects on the sea toprevent natural disasters and build plans and solutions to deal with incidentsat sea.

Thanks to practical support by the Norwegian institute in human resourcestraining and technology transfer, since 2018, Vietnam’s marine forecast has recordedeffective development, he noted.

The quality of the weather forecast bulletins has been remarkably improved, hestressed.

Norwegian Ambassador to Vietnam Grete Lochen said the cooperation between thetwo agencies has supported not only the forecast of tidal surges but also theuse and exploitation of results of weather forecast models and tools.

Participant to the workshop discussed topics on the forecast of waves and tidalsurges, and evaluated the quality ofwave forecasts by satellite data, and technologies for forecasting the spreadof pollutants and floating waste on the sea./.