1. WMO CM-12 Discussion on Socio-Economic Benefits
CGMS-43 Plenary Item F.4.3.1
Wenjian Zhang
World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
WMO; OBS/SAT

2. The WMO Consultative Meetings on High-Level Policy on Satellite Matters (CM)
Dialogue between satellite operators and WMO management
President and VPs, Presidents of Regional Associations, Technical Commissions, PRs of a subset of Members, Secretary-General and members of management
To discuss strategic direction that WMO takes in relation to space

3. The WMO Consultative Meetings on High-Level Policy on Satellite Matters (CM)
12th session: 21 June 2014
Architecture for Climate Monitoring from Space, and associated data policies (CGMS-43 item G.5)
Socio-economic benefits of space programmes

4. CM-12: Socio-economic benefits discussion
Briefings by:
CGMS SETT Chair (progress report)
EUMETSAT (Cost-benefit analysis of EPS-SG)
CMA (Preliminary assessment of SEB of CMA met-sat programmes)
NOAA (JPSS economic benefit analysis) - used OSCAR/Space as a reference tool
JMA (Himawari-8/9 for disaster risk reduction)
CMA: He described the use of the Delphi method to establish benefit estimates and reported on an estimated benefit/cost ratio of 40 for satellite systems. In explaining this high ratio, he offered the long-term satellite development plan pursued by China, a good balance between satellite and ground segments, an open data policy, and significant effort in application development. He acknowledged the challenges associated with estimating the socio-economic benefit of satellites.
Australia: S. Barrell noted the benefit of open data sharing, estimated to have a benefit of 1.3% of the annual GDP of OECD countries.

5. CM-12: Findings SEB studies important for satellite programmes to
Justify investments
Meet communication demands
SEB studies should include opportunity costs, and avoided costs
WMO workshops on impact of observing systems on NWP to be extended to other areas, such as climate
Some users unable to disaggregate value of meteorological information from other information
Value of integrated products (e.g., radar / satellite-based rainfall estimates)
German aviation industry as a major customer of German NMS (DWD) services was not in a position to estimate the monetary value of meteorological information that they receive from DWD, since this information was an integral part of a larger aviation management system and its value could therefore not be disaggregated

6. CM-12: Socio-economic benefits discussion
Recommendation
WMO is strongly encouraged to broaden its regular assessment of the impact of observing systems on user applications in considering areas beyond numerical weather prediction. This could be done either by broadening the scope of the highly successful series of WMO impact workshops (e.g. Sedona 2012), or by arranging similar but separate events for other application areas.

7. Thank you for your attention

8. Backup