The 5th International Rain Enhancement Forum, 25-26 January 2021
‘United For Water Security’
Leading international and national experts, researchers, scientists and stakeholders will come together to tackle the most pressing sustainability issues at the 5th International Rain Enhancement Forum (IREF) which is held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs, a first of its kind event that will convene virtually this year in view of Covid-19 outbreak.
Set to run from 25 to 26 January, the forum will be organized by the National Center of Meteorology (NCM) through the UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science (UAEREP). Held under the theme ‘United for Water Security’, the 2021 edition aims to highlight the latest scientific and technological advances with a view to finding new water security solutions through rain enhancement.
IREF Strategic Objectives
The event aims to bring together local and international experts to further cooperation on finding innovative strategies that can secure and sustain freshwater across the globe. It seeks to outline the UAE Water Security Strategy and the UAE Science Strategy, positioning the country as a global hub in rain enhancement and promoting its key role in transferring knowledge.
The Forum is structured to aid productive discussion between the program’s awardees and the many leading scientists in attendance on the broadest possible range of topics related to rain enhancement science.
Promoting collaborative research on rain enhancement science and technology globally, the Forum will give an overview of the program’s role in capacity-building globally, while highlighting its collaborative work with international universities and research institutes.
The Forum will highlight the advances made in the fields of modeling through Numerical Weather Prediction, artificial intelligence applications to weather, novel materials and methodologies implemented for rain enhancement and stimulation, evaluation methods for rain enhancement efforts, and the transitioning from research to operations. It will also be an opportunity for the panelists to discuss their innovative solutions to water scarcity challenges and the progress in optimizing the utilization of water as a sustainable resource.
IREF 2021 Pillars and Structure
IREF’s sessions will showcase the progress and achievements of the UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science’s nine awarded projects, led by distinguished multinational awardees over the past years. A special highlight of this exciting event will be the launch of the Program’s much anticipated Fourth Cycle. Furthermore, the details on the submission process and the targeted research areas will be showcased.
The forum will also share updates on the transition process of the novel nano-material for cloud seeding developed during UAEREP’s First Cycle by Prof. Linda Zou of Khalifa University. The highlights of this multi-institutional collaborative process, including modeling and airborne testing efforts, will be presented and discussed.
Additionally, there will be a focus on the potential applications of the awardees’ research to a range of planned projects in the years to come, including progress updates on the plan to integrate their findings into an advanced unified multi-component atmospheric model, and a cloud seeding decision algorithm. Aimed at improving cloud seeding methods through leveraging the research findings of awardee projects, the collaborative scientific venture will increase the accuracy of weather forecasts related to clouds’ seedability for rain enhancement in the UAE.
Other topics covered in the Forum include the outlook of water security in light of climate change, road mapping for future transitions from research to operations in rain enhancement, artificial intelligence applications in meteorology, the science of cloud formation and rainfall in the Arabian Gulf, evaluations of rain enhancement impacts, and innovative insights and methodologies into rain enhancement.
Join us at the 5th International Rain Enhancement Forum (IREF)
Date: 25-26 January
Location: Virtually through the App
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