On June 8th this year, a kick-off meeting is scheduled in Aqaba, where Jordanian and Israeli scientists will meet with experienced LTER scientists and administrators from USA and Europe to determine the form and practice of the proposed local LTER effort. This initiative to establish a new long-term ecological study gels while regional and global occurrences demand immediate answers regarding local environmental and sociological interactions.

Flash-flood warning models can save lives and protect various kinds of infrastructure. In dry climate regions, rainfall is highly variable and can be of high-intensity. Since rain gauge networks in such areas are sparse, rainfall information derived from weather radar systems can provide useful input for flash-flood models. This paper presents a flash-flood warning model utilizing radar rainfall data and applies it to two catchments that drain into the dry Dead Sea region