The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), together with the
OpenSense Action organized a "Round Table on Global Microwave Link Data Collection Initiative (GMDI)" event which took place in ITU Headquarters, Varembe Building in Room G1 in Geneva, Switzerland on 18 September 2024 from 09:00 - 17:00 CET. The event's objective was to establish fundamental principles of a global initiative for collection and curation of attenuation data from microwave backhaul links (also termed as commercial microwave links, CMLs) and their utilization in meteorology and telecommunication.
CMLs have proven to be good rainfall sensors, also in data-scarce regions like developing countries. However, data availability hinders larger-scale applications. We would like to bring to one table, stakeholders from the telecommunication and meteorology fields, namely ITU, GSMA and representatives of mobile network operators, national weather services, EUMETNET, and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), as well as researchers involved in developing CML data processing. The Global Microwave Link Data Initiative is part of the COST Action OpenSense's efforts to overcome critical barriers preventing CML data exchange and usage in meteorological and hydrological applications like early warning of flooding events.
The agenda of the meeting is detailed below. In addition, an overview of the potential solution which were proposed as a basis for discussion during the meeting is provided
here.
Objective
- Discuss and establish an initiative for data collection and usage of microwave backhaul link data for rainfall observation and other hydrometeorological applications.
About OPENSENSE (COST Action CA20136). OPENSENSE brings together scientists investigating different opportunistic sensors (e.g. microwave links, citizen science), experts from weather services, and end-users of rainfall products to build a worldwide reference opportunistic sensing community. The overarching goals of the COST are to overcome critical barriers preventing data exchange and acceptance as hydrometeorological observations, define standards to allow for large-scale benchmarking of opportunistic sensing precipitation products and develop new methods for precipitation retrieval, coordinate the integration of the opportunistic observations into traditional monitoring networks, and identify potential new sources of precipitation observations. Further details can be found here:
https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA20136/.
Programme
| 09:30 - 09:45 | Welcome Notes, Meeting Rationale, Introduction of OpenSense and GMDI (Vojtech Bareš, Hagit Messer)
|
09:45 - 10:00
| Introduction of Participants (All)
|
10:00 - 10:45
| Session 2: CML Data for Meteorology and Hydrology
|
10:00 - 10:20
| Focused Keynote on CML Data for Meteorology (Martin Fencl)
|
10:20 - 10:45
| Collecting statements (All)
|
10:45 -11:00
| Coffee Break
|
11:00 -12:00
| Session 3: Global Microwave Link Data Collection Initiative (GMDI)
|
11:00 - 11:30
| Current Status of GMDI (Christian Chwala)
|
11:30 -12:00
| Collecting statements + initial discussion (All)
|
12:00 -13:30
| Lunch Break
|
13:30 - 15:00
| Session 4: Discussion
|
13:30 - 14:00
| Moderated Round Table Discussion
|
14:00 - 15:00
| Discussion in Breakout Rooms
|
15:00 - 15:15
| Coffee Break
|
15:15 - 17:00
| Session 5: Consensus and Final Statement Building
|
15:15 - 16:00
| Consensus Building
|
16:00 - 16:45
| Drafting a Joint Statement
|
16:45 - 17:00
| Conclusion and Endnotes
|
