National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology

The mission of the National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology is to advance scientific research and its application, support international scientific cooperation, to act as an expert organisation in atmosphere physics and as an adviser about climate change matters in the country. NIMH has two main tasks. The first one is to maintain operational meteorological, hydrological and environmental activities (observations, telecommunication, data processing and archiving, forecasting, etc.) as to fulfil the needs of the society in the country and for international exchange. The second task is research in the fields of meteorology, climatology, hydrology and environment. NIMH is the main provider of scientific research and operational activities in those fields in Bulgaria. It is providing the Governmental Institutions with high quality hydro-meteorological, agro-meteorological, climatological and other environmental data, analyses, expertise and forecasts for the country and the western part of the Black Sea. Its research programme focuses on the key research challenges of the future related to the problems of climate change management and mitigation and the ways to adapt to it. NIMH wants to influence the corresponding government authorities to expand the financial support to this ERA-NET and to coordinate the research programme. NIMH is responsible to bring together interested national bodies and entities in the cooperation procedure in order to change the financial background in the country related to climate change following the best practices of the partners. The scientists of NIMH are in charge of development and implementation of methods for modern information technologies for research, modelling and forecasting of hydro- and meteorological phenomena and processes, and climate change as well. NIMH participates in national, regional and international research projects governed by among others WMO, EC (FP 5, 6, 7) CEC, NATO, IAEA, FAO, World Bank. The main goal of the research is development of geophysical sciences (mainly on regional scale).