Since the first ESCAP/WMO Typhoon Committee (TC) Integrated Workshop held in Macao, China hosted by Macao Meteorological and Geophysical Bureau (MMGB) in the year 2006, MMGB will once again host this important annual event of the Typhoon Committee together with the Typhoon Committee Secretariat and support from Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Macao Foundation, Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs of Korea (MLTM) and Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of Japan (MLIT). The Workshop will be held at the Convention Center of the Macao Science Center on 6 -10 September 2010 with the attendance of more than 70 experts from 14 TC Members: China; Cambodia; Hong Kong, China; Japan; Lao People’s Democratic Republic; Republic of Korea; Malaysia; the Philippines; Thailand; Viet Nam; Democratic People’s Republic of Korea; Macao, China; Singapore and the United States of America. The Asia and pacific Region is one of the most vulnerable areas to natural disasters. From 1950 to 2005, 54 percent (approximately 3 million people) of the worldwide deaths produced by natural disasters occurred in this region and many of these deaths are due to typhoon-related impacts. Besides this, the wind storms and floods associated with typhoon-related impacts account for 57 percent (approximately US$33.5 billion) of the economic losses in this region in the same period. Recent example of flooding disasters in urban cities such as Manila in 2009 makes the issue of urban flooding as one of the main challenges of TC. Subsequently, The ESCAP/WMO TC at its 42nd Session held in Singapore decided to convene again the Integrated Workshop and adopted “Urban Flood Risk Management in a Changing Climate: Sustainable and Adaption Challenges” as the title of the Workshop in response to this challenge. The Workshop is intended to provide the opportunity not only for the exchange of ideas among experts from the various fields covered by the Committee, but also to assess the progress in the various activities endorsed by the Committee at its 42nd Annual Session. Specialists in all three fields: Meteorology, Hydrology and Disaster Risk Reduction will join together to develop strategies to mitigate the devastating impacts of Urban Flooding in the context of changing climate. Moreover, the experts will take this opportunity to discuss the issues on: Climate Change and the Committee Activities; benefits of typhoons and to review the TC Strategic plan 2007-2011 in view to prepare a draft of Strategic Plan for the period of 2012-2016. The Quantitative Precipitation Estimation (QPE) and the Quantitative Precipitation Forecast (QPF), as one of the important technique to estimate the amount of precipitation, will also be addressed.
