China donated receivers for the Fengyun Cast, a satellite broadcasting service, to 11 Asia Pacific countries Wednesday, in a drive to protect the region from natural disasters.

"The donation marked the launch of operational services for international users by the Fengyun system," Zhang Wenjian, deputy director of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) said at the Beijing launch ceremony.

"This donation marks China's fulfillment of its commitment to the international community on sharing satellite data."

Fengyun Cast, invented by the CMA, collects meteorological, water resource, agricultural, forestry, marine, environmental, seismological, oil, civil aviation, education and national defense data.

The CMA said through receiving data from Fengyun Cast, the countries who received the equipment will be able to keep track on typhoons and torrential rain in the region, providing information for TV weather programs, as well as helping monitor the risk of floods, droughts, heavy fog, sea ice, river sediment blockages, forest and prairie fires, and sand-and-dust storms.

Fengyun Cast is also a powerful tool for keeping a watch on urban heat effects and crop growth, allowing countries to estimate the size of their agricultural yields.

The receivers included the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos.

The new countries to benefit from the system join Bangladesh, Indonesia and Iran, which got the free receiving system last year. Currently there are 17 countries in the region with access to earth observation data provided by Fengyun Cast.

Karunatilaka Amunugama, Ambassador of Sri Lanka, said at the ceremony: "I really appreciate the Chinese government, CMA and the Chinese people for sharing this valuable data with us."

He said the only way to minimize the destruction wrecked by a natural disaster was through preparation based on satellite data.

Yang Jun, director of the National Satellite Meteorological Center under CMA, said that this year Fengyun Cast has been switched to C-band, which allows wider coverage across the Asia Pacific region.

The 10-month test period after the switch to C-band has shown that it works stably and reliably, fully capable of providing data sharing services to neighboring countries and regions.

China was a founding member of the intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations (GEO), which leads international efforts to build a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). Fengyun Cast is one of the important parts of GEOSS, which also includes EUMET Cast based in the EU and GEONET Cast in the United States.

(China Daily October 11, 2007)