Mother earth is unquestionably warming and the ensuing multiple threats are real as many of the Scientists and Technologists are warning for quite some time. Most of the heads of the Governments and decision makers have understood the horrors of climate change and its linkage with international conflicts and scope for human tragedy. The Fourth Assessment Report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has mentioned clearly the distressing nexus between climate change on one hand, and the consequential environmental catastrophe, economic doom, natural disasters like droughts and floods, regional upheavals, and national and international security, on the other hand. In this particular background, efforts for understanding the threats of global warming and finding the opportunities through integration of technologies and adoption of advanced management practices are needed.

The issues related to global warming and climate change are multidimensional and as such multidisciplinary platforms are required to formulate guidelines and methodologies for implementation. As such a platform in the form of an International Workshop and a Symposium is created to discuss two apparently interrelated topics pertaining to climate change via Natural Disasters and Cloud Seeding. The International Workshop on Weather Modification and Symposium on Natural Disaster Management are organized as ICORG activities. ICORG series viz International Conventions on Geoinformatics is being organized on various themes related to Natural Resources and Environmental Management during the last 15 years at regular intervals.

The event consists of a Workshop on Weather Modification Technologies and a Symposium on Natural Disaster Management during June 27-29th 2008 at Hyderabad . The event is being organized at JNT University , Kukatpally, Hyderabad jointly with Rain Shadow Area Development Department of Government of Andhra Pradesh and Indian Meteorological Society, Hyderabad Chapter.

Weather Modification is the treatment of individual clouds or storm systems for the purpose of achieving a beneficial effect without harming people or the environment. The most common intended effects of weather modification include precipitation increase (rain and /or snow), fog dispersal (visibility improvement) and hail suppression. The tools of Satellite Meteorology, Radar Technology, Cloud Dynamics, Environmental Chemistry, Flare Technology, Numerical Modeling Techniques, Statistics, Fluid Dynamics and Spatial Information and Communication Technologies have provided excellent scope for research and development and operational implementation of Weather Modification Technologies. It has been well established that successful implementation of Cloud Seeding resulting in precipitation enhancement has significant positive beneficial impact in managing the issue of global warming and climate change. India has a long history of operations for weather modification and the experiments carried out for 11 years by IITM are the most significant studies during 1990s.

As such the Government of Andhra Pradesh, in its earnest desire to provide reasonable amount of water for augmentation of the upland and rain-fed area agriculture activities through rainfall enhancement has funded the operations significantly from 2004. The operations carried out during 2004-07 have yielded valuable data, significant results in terms of scope and identification of technologies for enhancement of rainfall, development of methods for validation, understanding Physics and Chemistry of hygroscopic seeding and   cloud dynamics. The international workshop is expected to cover some of these themes.

Natural Disaster Management is one of the most important tasks being evolved today by integrating the tools of information and communication technologies for management of various disasters like Floods, Droughts, Earthquakes, Hailstorms, Landslides, Tsunami, Avalanches, Cyclones, etc. The economic losses are increasing in recent years from natural disasters. The present total global damages are more than 55 billion US Dollars as per WMO, compared to 35 billion US Dollars in 2001 itself. The economic impact is still rising can be attributed to increasing population and substantial increase in the infrastructure vulnerable to natural hazards. The Symposium is expected to highlight the areas prone to various types of disasters and review the management measures for possible implementation by the disaster management authorities. The following are the themes proposed to be discussed during the workshop as well as the symposium.