Knowledge Sharing and Capacity Development Workshop - The Concept Note of the Workshop

Knowledge Sharing and Capacity Development Workshop

South-South and Regional Cooperation for Flood Risk Management in Islamic Republic of Iran

'Build a Bridge on Flood Risk Management'

Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran, 9-10 October 2019

The Islamic Republic of Iran was impacted by widespread floods from mid-March to April 2019. The northeast part of the country was hit first, followed by the southwest, until a total of 26 of the country’s 31 provinces were flooded. More than 70 people died, particularly during the flash floods, while 10 million were affected, and 500,000 displaced – half of them were children. The initial estimates suggest that the floods have caused $4.2 billion in damages to roads, bridges, homes and agricultural land. Further, it’s reported that more than 12,000 km of roads, representing a third of the country’s network, have been damaged. The severe impacts of the widespread floods to multiple development-related sectors is likely to have implications on the Islamic Republic of Iran’s efforts to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.  

The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran responded to the recent floods swiftly and the emergency phase of the response was completed successfully. Over the years, the Islamic Republic of Iran has strengthened its institutional capacity and preparedness to respond to earthquakes, more so than floods. Further, despite the relatively low level of human losses in Iran recent floods, the disaster caused heavy and wide scale damages and losses in the various infrastructures and sectors of the country. Moreover, unlike sudden-onset disasters such as earthquake to which Iran is used to and well-experienced to respond, climate and weather-related wide-scale hazards such as massive floods are a relatively new phenomenon and the country is striving to improve its capacities to better reduce the risk and negative impacts of such disasters in the future.

Considering the large scale and massive damages and unprecedented losses of the recent floods in Iran and to ensure a nation-wide and holistic approach in assessing the risk, damages and losses of the floods and in developing a comprehensive recovery plan, the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran issued a decree to establish the “Special Reporting Committee on Iran Floods 2019” (SRCIF) headed by the President of University of Tehran and with the participation of distinguished academic scholars and technical experts from across the country. The SRCIF commenced its work shortly after the emergency phase of the floods with the participation of over 300 experts and scientists in 16 working groups covering all sectors and dimensions of flood risk management. The Committee is expected to submit its first draft report in the coming weeks. In fulfilling its mandate and task, the Committee also decided to benefit from the expertise and knowledge of regional and international organizations including the United Nations.

The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran requested ESCAP for the technical assistance to strengthen flood risk management capacity in the country. In responding to the request of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, ESCAP has taken a number of initiatives and measures to provide its contributions with the support of Asian and Pacific Centre for Development of Disaster Information Management (APDIM) a recently established regional institution of ESCAP in the Islamic Republic of Iran. First, ESCAP provided international expert in the area of Economic Impacts Assessment to support the Post Disaster Need Assessment (PDNA) process in planning for the recovery phase of Iran floods. Second, ESCAP decided to Support University of Tehran and the Special Reporting Committee on Iran Floods 2019 (SRCIF) to organize a regional high-level experts workshop to build a bridge between national, regional and international institutions, experts and professionals to share common ideas and experiences on managing floods and to provide vision and recommendations for effective regional cooperation in this area.

Recent ESCAP research highlights the increasing complexity of weather-related disasters, in quick succession and with cascading impacts, in fragile environmental contexts of Southwest Asia. The sub-region forms one of the region’s disaster hotspots and is characterized by risk complexities, incidence of poverty, inequality and environmental vulnerabilities. The unprecedented floods in the Islamic Republic of Iran were the result of an extreme weather event that also trigged landslides and soil erosion. The lessons learnt highlighted the complex nature of flood risks requires better understanding and strengthened institutional capacity to minimize the impacts. It’s in this context that the initiative –'build a bridge on flood risk management' taken up by SRCIF and University of Tehran can capitalize on regional and south-south cooperation mechanism for knowledge sharing and capacity development through networking and partnership.

In support of the initiative –'build a bridge on flood risk management' ', ESCAP and the University of Tehran on behalf of SRCIF are jointly organizing workshop to involve the key experts dealing with flood risk management issues from the selected member Countries – China, India, Japan, Pakistan and Thailand as well as international organizations (ICHARM, IWMI/CGIAR, RIMES).

Recognizing that flood risk management is a multi-sectoral and multidisciplinary endeavour, the workshop will also facilitate knowledge sharing on ecosystem-based approaches, resilient agriculture, grey and green infrastructure for flood protection, economic analysis, socio-cultural and health related challenges. Risks of flood affect various sectors in multiple ways, 'build a bridge on flood risk management' initiative offers an opportunity to strengthen the networking and partnership. In this regard, the workshop aims to unlock the potential of south-south and regional cooperation and to capitalize on the innovations taking place in public policy, science and technology for flood risk management with multi-sectoral approaches.

Key objectives

• To identify the challenges caused by climate changes and related hydro-meteorological disasters including the recent floods and drought vis-à-vis opportunities for flood risk management in Islamic Republic of Iran;   

• To share the knowledge, tools and experiences of flood risk management with multi-sectoral approaches and identifying various types of physical, infrastructural, social, economic and environmental vulnerabilities and the areas of need for information sharing and capacity development in Islamic Republic of Iran;
• To develop recommendations and a follow-up action plan for the networking of Iranian national institutions with regional, global and related Centre of Excellence in flood and water-related disasters.

Date and Venue

• Venue: Bagh Negarestan, Baharestan Sq. University of Tehran, Tehran,

• Date: 9^th to 10^th of October 2019

Structure of Meeting

Day 1 (October9^th): Understanding the institutional capacity of the Iranian National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) and related organizations, including academia and research institutions, to  deliver timely and accurate products and services required in flood forecasting and warning ;review of the multi-sectoral approaches including those related to ecosystem based, resilient agriculture, green and grey infrastructure, socio-economic analysis and health related challenges for flood risk management .

Day 2 (October10^th):Experience and knowledge sharing on medium-range weather forecasting, multi-modal ensemble prediction systems, and climate prediction to extend flood warning times; Enhancing the capacity to develop timely and accurate flash flood warnings by developing and implementing flash flood guidance systems; Identifying various types of infrastructural, physical and non-physical vulnerabilities; Enhancing south-south and regional cooperation for flood risk management through networking and partnership;

Organizer and Participating Experts (around 60 participants drawn from SRCIF and various institutions/academia and ministries of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran)

• Organizer: ESCAP and University of Tehran on behalf of SRCIF
• Collaborating institutions#: (i)International Floods Initiative (IFI)/International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management (ICHARM) - Tokyo, (ii) Regional Integrated Multi-hazard Early Warning System (RIMES) – AIT/Bangkok and (iii) International Water Management Institute (CGIAR) – Colombo among others.