Predicting current and future periods of flooding and drought is the main characteristic that the Monitor System for Latin America and the Caribbean offers. With the goal of learning to use this valuable tool, a technology transfer workshop will be held on 17 and 18 November, 2014, at the UNESCO Office in Santiago de Chile.

The training event will be attended by professionals from the hydro-meteorological agencies of 14 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, who will also learn protocols for the calibration and validation of the system by working with national precipitation and flow rate records from their countries of origin.

Koen Verbist, a specialist in the UNESCO programme on Hydrological Systems and Global Change, explains the need for learning how to use these tools in the region: “Throughout Latin America and the Caribbean countries are being affected by climate change, generating episodes of extreme stress on water resources. It is vital that we learn how to read data from yesterday and today in order to be able to manage flood and drought risk, minimize people’s vulnerability to these events through early warning, and work together, given that the impacts of flooding and drought often cross national borders – as in the case of the current drought in Central America.”