China plans to invest 600 million yuan (US$72 million) for the installation of 30 new-generation Doppler weather radars in 2005.
In the upcoming three years, 84 such radars will be installed, forming a nationwide climate monitoring network with 158 Dopplers.
By 2008, the network will play a leading role in forecasting imminent meteorological disasters and the density of radars is second only to that of the United States, Zhang Guocai, director of the Forecast and Disaster Control Department of the China Meteorological Bureau (CMB), told Xinhua.
In 2004 alone, natural disasters brought 89.48 billion yuan (US$10.8 billion) of direct economic loss on China's agriculture, with 27.5 million hectares of crops affected, the CMB figures show.
The existing 74 Doppler radars in China led to timely and accurate forecasts of two typhoons in the summer of 2004, said Zhang, which enables nearly 1 million people to evacuate in advance.
(Xinhua News Agency February 9, 2005)
