US embassy cable - 04AMMAN10033

UNCLAS AMMAN 010033 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NOAA FOR NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE/INTERNATIONAL/BARRETT 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SENV, EAGR, TPHY, IS, JO 
SUBJECT: Meteorology System Brings Israel, Palestinians, 
Jordan Together 
 
1.  Summary:  An innovative Sandia Lab project in the Middle 
East called Sustainable Land Use has grown into a 
groundbreaking arrangement for sharing nearly real-time 
meteorological data between Israel, the Palestinian 
Authority and Jordan.  End summary. 
 
Meteorology System Builds on Earlier Land Use Project 
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2.  Sandia Lab's Cooperative Monitoring Center (CMC) and its 
sister organization the Cooperative Monitoring Center - 
Amman brought representatives from Jordan, the Palestinian 
Authority and Israel together in Amman on November 30, to 
initiate and develop the Middle East Meteorological System 
(MEMS).  The university professors representing Israel 
participated via telephone because their schedules made it 
impossible for them to come to Jordan.  MEMS is an online, 
regional, meteorological data collection and exchange 
network that extends the 1999 Sandia Lab Sustainable Land 
Use project.  Under the Sustainable Land Use project, there 
were two weather stations installed on the West Bank and two 
in Israel that transferred data to a server at Sandia in New 
Mexico, from whence the data were studied and shared by all 
the parties.  The participants agreed on November 30 to 
bring in Jordan as a new partner, to expand to a total of 
eight sites, and to have CMC-Amman take on the role of 
project coordinator and network manager.  Thus, the MEMS 
project now becomes a regional network of cooperative 
monitoring and data sharing.  CMC-Amman's servers in Jordan 
will host the Internet-based MEMS database and website. CMC- 
Amman will develop and manage the website, database and 
network, conduct regional meetings and workshops on 
meteorology and related disciplines such as agronomy and 
ecology, coordinate projects, and seek to draw in new 
regional partners.  The MEMS partners plan to meet again in 
the summer of 2005 at a place to be determined. 
 
Jordan Joins MEMS, Represented by Ag Research Center 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
 
3.  Jordan's National Center for Agriculture Research and 
Technology Transfer (NCARTT), part of the Ministry of 
Agriculture, will be the first Jordanian partner in MEMS. 
NCARTT will provide its data to CMC-Amman, which will post 
that data to the MEMS website.  CMC-Amman will also 
integrate NCARTT's system of weather stations into the MEMS 
network, in the process upgrading those stations to match 
the capabilities of the stations already on-line in the West 
Bank and Israel. 
 
Possible Partner: USDA Irrigation Management System 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
4.  Ibrahim Shaqir, from USDA's Office of International 
Research Programs, briefed participants on the Middle East 
Regional Irrigation Management Information System (MERMIS), 
a possible partner with MEMS.  MERMIS is funded by the 
Department of State, and developed and managed by the USDA 
Agriculture Research Service's Office of International 
Research Programs as part of the Middle East Peace 
Initiative.  MEMRIS is a cooperative regional project 
bringing together participants from Israel, Jordan, the 
Palestinian Authority, and the United States.  MERMIS aims 
at improving water management in the Middle East by 
developing a regional database system for dissemination of 
agro-meteorological information through installing automated 
weather stations and applying irrigation scheduling 
methodology in farmer's fields.  Their website is 
www.mermis.org 
 
5.  COMMENT: MEMS is a solid example of practical 
cooperation driven by national interest, and shows that 
strategic thinking and long-term engagement by U.S. partners 
can contribute to the development of regional ties. 
 
HALE