Meteorological Organization: We Haven't Received Any Funding for Crisis Management for Five Years

A senior official from Iran's Meteorological Organization criticized the lack of funding allocated to the organization and the limited access to essential and urgent data necessary for implementing the country's crisis management law. The head of the National Center for Weather Forecasting and Crisis Management stated that in the past five years, 'no funding' has been provided to this organization for the execution and advancement of the goals of the crisis management law. Sadegh Ziaian made these remarks on Thursday, July 25, during a meeting with managers of this organization and the Iranian Crisis Management Organization. The crisis management law was communicated to the government after being approved by the Islamic Consultative Assembly and confirmed by the Guardian Council in 2019. The law aims to 'enhance community capabilities in forecasting and prevention, reduce risk and vulnerability, respond effectively to natural hazards, incidents, and crises, and strengthen resilience through integrated management in policymaking, planning, coordination, and cohesion' across various fields for national crisis management. The news of funding shortages comes at a time when the Meteorological Organization is a key member of the national crisis management headquarters, and according to Ziaian, '90% of its services... even data and information from the most remote weather stations in the country are at the service of crisis management.' This official also identified another 'significant challenge' for the organization as 'the unavailability of important data layers for predicting hazards and hazardous weather effects.' He stated, 'Some data that should be provided to meteorology online is made available with a two-year delay, and some important data for predicting air pollution has only been provided to the organization once, in 2017.' Ziaian emphasized that to predict air pollution levels, 'traffic information and today's emission inventory must be available, not that we use data from six years ago as model input.' The official did not explain the reason for the limited access to the necessary data, but generally, in the Islamic Republic, much information is only available to security agencies or security agencies have a say in accessing them. The importance of crisis management activities in Iran is particularly significant as the country has been grappling with water scarcity, drought, air pollution, dust storms, and severe climate impacts that have manifested as devastating rains and floods, causing numerous casualties and financial losses.