From the information on precipitation, avaliable in participating countries, a map was put together showing existing radars, rain gauges and visibility of the (atmosphere) volume over the teritory covered by the radars. This sets the basis to judge the present potential of radar in assessing precipitation (parts visible to existing radars) and to devise for each country realistic procedures for estimating errors and design algorithms for its partial correction. E.g. it shows, how far away gauges are and what kind of overlap exists between radars. It helps to better be able to judge the agreement to be expected in different tasks (applications). It is in agreement with our task, described in the scientific and technical description:
The influence of the topography around the radar, the width of the radar beam and the vertical echo structure produce a complex error distribution in space and time, with errors dependent upon storm tyoe, distance from the radar, and the radar horizon. In spite of excellent agreement between amounts estimated by radar at close ranges and gauges located below the radar volume, underestimation of rainfall increases with range from radar. Our experience dramatically shows how significantly errors are reduced when precipitation can be estimated close to the ground, a task made easier by choosing a radar site with a good view and by rigorously eliminating echoes contaminated by ground clutter and anomalous propagation without, however, reducing the detection capability of the radar for precipitation.
Experience on the collection of data from radar, rain gauge and meteorological ground stations is to be exchanged. Precipitation events in the territory of the three countries are to be analyzed and interpreted to develop algorithms for hydrological applications and the exchange of this data to neighbouring countries.