The Presidency of Meteorology and Environment PME held a meeting with relevant government agencies at its headquarters in Jeddah on Wednesday to work out urgent measures and solutions to deal with the drought that has hit the Kingdom. Dr. Saad Mahlafi, PME Assistant President for Meteorology Affairs, said the major objective of the meeting was to come up with an approach that recognizes the urgency of the need to confront drought in the Kingdom and the menace of land degradation. Recent modeling studies show the Kingdom and Arab countries will face an increase of two to 5.5 degrees centigrade in surface temperature by the end of this century. This temperature increase will be coupled with a projected decrease in precipitation. This will result in shorter winters, drier and hotter summers and increased weather variability. Dr. Mahlafi said Prince Turki Bin Naser Bin Abdul Aziz, PME General President, called for the meeting in order to come up with urgent solutions to deal with drought and a national strategy to confront it. The meeting began with a review of the program worked out by the Regional Center for Monitoring Drought and Early Alarm to monitor the drought in 2011-2012. This program covered drought index, field surveys and questionnaires to gauge the impact of drought on underground water, agricultural crops, vegetation cover, animal resources, wildlife and on aspects of socioeconomics and health. Dr. Mahlfai urged all the relevant bodies to come up with a national strategy to confront drought and minimize its negative impact on several vital productive sectors. He said: “On the basis of these surveys and questionnaires, the presidency has designed a database for drought showing the most important elements and factors covered by the survey, including the vegetation cover and the impact of drought on trees, plants, animal resources and underground water.” He also revealed that other related government bodies are working on a comprehensive and unified plan to be submitted by the presidency to King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, for approval. He said: “A particularly pressing concern for much of the Arab world is the high degree of aridity and vulnerability of land to climate change as well as water scarcity and variability.” He said that the land resources in the Kingdom and Arab countries face three main challenges - aridity, recurrent drought and desertification.
