the National Administration of Meteorology

NAM provides services of national public interest in the domain of meteorology, hydrology, hydrogeology, and water management. The activity of NAM comprises the elaboration of studies and research in meteorology, hydrology, hydrogeology and water management, aiming at the economic and social development of Romania, but also at integrating this activity into the international conventions and networks system.

NAM co-ordinates the National Meteorological Observations Network which includes: 151 stations, 3 upper-air stations, 7 radar centres, 729 rain gauging stations, 60 agrometeorological stations and 8 actinometric stations.

Due to its nature, the meteorology requires a close international co-operation. Romania is founder of the International Meteorological Organisation, and member of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) since 1948. Besides the foreign data exchange, NAM takes part in international programs with the WMO, specific projects with the EU or has bilateral and multilateral collaborations.

In the last years NAM supported by the Ministry of Environment and Water Management (MEWM) initiated several actions in order to contribute at enhancing the meteorological and hydrological activities in Romania, such as follows:

on 15 November 1998 started the operation of the Automated System for Meteorological Messages Commuting started, which ensures the transmission of meteorological data and information into international flow. In the meantime, the national data flow from the Regional Meteorological Centres to the Main Centre in Bucharest was monitored;

on 15 April 1999 the NOAA Satellite Reception Station started to operate, and contributed to the improvement of the meteorological forecasting.

MAIN PROJECTS AND PROGRAMS CARRIED OUT BY NAM

Weather Watch Program, which consists in performing observations, transfer and meteorological data processing and storage;
Meteorological Services and Assistance Program consists in forecasts and warnings and also in disseminating data and information;
Meteorological and Hydrological Studies and Research Program which includes a study elaboration at the users request and development researches in the above-mentioned field
Technological Development Program includes:
- ANTIHAIL (National Antihail and Precipitation Simulation System). Program for the achievement of the Antihail and Precipitation Simulation National System has as main goal, up to 2012, the creation of units for fighting against hail falls and creating a special aviation unit for inseminating the clouds in order to stimulate precipitation;
- SIMIN PROJECT (NATIONAL INTEGRATED METEOROLOGICAL SYSTEM). Started in 2001, SIMIN is a complex project aiming to improve the meteorological and environmental data sources, integrate the information automatically obtained from the new data sources with those ones provided by the existing sensors, in order to assure an up-graded meteorological and hydrological information support for Romania.

PROJECTS FINANCED BY THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY

Within the LIFE-Environment Programme:

LIFE ASSURE (1999-2002) developed a pilot system for urban environmental impact assessment in relation with urban planned land-use, using the Open-GIS technology and pollution levels estimation procedures;
LIFE MOSYM (1999-2002), provides technical assistance to local authorities and MEWM in reconsidering the concept of hydrological informational system and in surveying the environmental parameters (water quality), using a data direct collecting – transmitting - reception and processing automatic system, integrated with specialized data base (numerical and cartographical data).
LIFE AIRFORALL (2002-2005) project approaches, for the first time in Romania, the air quality forecasts issue in “hot-spot” areals on the national territory, providing a feed-back instrument upon pollutants with the forecast impact warning towards the decision-making factors. Using the Open GIS – international application within LIFE-ASSURE, data and information are integrated. There are used the ALADIN and MEDIA model results.
DIMINISH - “Development of an Integrated Basin Management System to correlate the water quantitative and qualitative analyses with the socio-economic analyses, using Open-GIS technology”. This project carried out within the EC DG Environment LIFE Programme, and developed in partnership by NAM and NARW - NIHWM (National Administration ”Romanian Waters” – National Institute of Hydrology and Water Management), ensures the use of a high technology of an in situ and informatic implementation for surveying the hydrographic space in the Bistrita Basin, aiming at the improvement of the hydrological informational and water management system in order to accomplish the objectives established inclusively within the Community document - Framework Directive in the water management domain (Water Framework Directive).

INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS

ALADIN International Project (Aire Limitée Adaptation dynamique Développement InterNational) was proposed by Meteo-France in 1990 to the central and eastern European countries (including Romania) for the common achievement of a numerical weather forecast system which was to be used on limited geographical areas (relatively small but with a high resolution), requiring only a moderated calculation capacity;

COST Project ACTION 718 – Meteorological Applications for Agriculture (2000-2004) has as general objectives the meteorological applications improvement in agriculture through the identification of requests to develop the operational agrometeorological models and their use for the agricultural management improvement and environmental protection and also the remote sensing data integration in order to enhance these models performance. In 2001 there final reports were elaborated referring to the remote sensing data use to determine the soil temperature and other agrometeorological parameters;

ALATNET international Project (Aladin Training NETork) for the variation and extension of the research activity around the ALADIN numerical weather forecast model on limited area, is financed by the European Community TRM/IHP program. The network includes 5 main research cemtres (Toulouse, Bruxelles, Prague, Budapest, Ljubliana), providing a close co-operation between the numerical weather forecast European teams. The NAM contribution to the project is also represented by 3 students, participations to summer training schools and short work visits.

PROJECTS FINANCED BY THE WORLD BANK

MEDHYCOS Project (MEDiterranean Hydrological Cycle Observing System) is initiated by WMO and aims to develop an automatic stations network with satellite transmission of both hydrometeorological data and a regional database that allows the access to information in real time.