Roundup: Zimbabwe tunes in to Chinese satellites for better weather monitoring

Zimbabwe's state weather forecast department has tuned in to signals emitted from polar-orbiting Chinese satellites in a technological makeover aimed to improve the meteorological services of a country which relies on agriculture but has struggled to cope with irrationally changing weather patterns in recent years.

The receiving and processing system to access data from China's Fengyun-3 series of satellites is part of a 1.6-million-U.S.-dollar donation China handed over to Zimbabwe on Thursday.

The southern African country's weather service was blamed for its slow response, inaccuracy, or in some cases, the lack of any information, particularly during last year's abnormal rainy season resulting in a one of the worst drought in decades.

Zimbabwe's Meteorological Services Department Director Amos Makarau told Xinhua the equipment was "revolutionary" and would greatly enhance the capacity of the organization in delivering efficient and timely weather information.

According to Dennis Kapaso, a senior system engineer, the donation help Zimbabwe achieve the migration from analyzing data from only one geostationary satellite to a group of seven polar-orbit satellites, which provide more frequent weather updates and much higher image resolution.

The Fengyun-3 series, currently composed of three satellites, were launched between 2007 and 2013, to provide multi-spectral, tree-dimensional, quantitative and high precision data to be used in medium and long-range numerical weather forecast, climatic prediction, and natural disaster monitoring for droughts, fires, vegetation and water.

"It's going to help us monitor weather even at a smaller scale and with more detail, something which we were not able to do with the satellite images from the previous geostationary Eumetsat satellite. It's a revolution," Makarau said.

Other equipment handed over to Zimbabwe on Thursday includes three automatic weather stations, and a meteorological early warning radio system.

"Right now we have been having problems in making sure our weather forecasts get to all the people in Zimbabwe due to various communication problems. As long as there is a radio station in a neighborhood every person now can be able to be warned of any impending disaster," he said.

He said 1,600 radios will be distributed, one per each village to ensure direct dissemination of warnings and forecasts of extreme weather conditions to the villagers.

Zimbabwe's economy is largely agriculture-based and more than 70 percent of the 13 million population live in rural areas. Without sufficient irrigation facilities, the Zimbabwean farmers are vulnerable to the change of rainfall patterns.

Environment, Water and Climate Minister Oppah Muchinguri said over the past few years, demand for accurate weather and climate information has increased due to the climate change and the frequent occurrence of extreme weather.

She said the country has not yet recovered from the averse effects of a prolong drought during the past rainy season, which reduced harvest and left millions of people in the country in need of foreign food aid.

She said the donated equipment would help Zimbabwe not only provide farmers with accurate weather information but also monitor forest fires, spot illegal gold panning, and other functions.

Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe Huang Ping said the donation showed the importance that China attaches to meteorological cooperation with Zimbabwe and would help the country "better prepared to cope with climate change."

He also noted that the 24.6 million dollars worth of rice committed by Beijing as emergency food aid to drought-hit Zimbabwe will soon arrive as authorities finalize the logistics details. Endit