The Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir and a United Kingdom based space agency have joined hands to work on a collaborative project on the impact-based flood forecasting.
Key facts
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The project is supported by the national space innovation programme (NSIP).
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The NSIP programme is undertaken by HR Wallingford in association with the Oxford University, D-orbit and Sayers & Partners (SPL).
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This move will help in predicting the fluvial flood risks with respect to the expected loss to life, infrastructure disruption, injuries that occurs to the people, building collapse, and other economic damage.
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This move was taken by the administration because currently there is any effective impact-based flood forecasting mechanism in the UT.
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Further, the international collaboration to set up the system is specific because it will help in analysing the past flood events.
About the impact-based flood forecasting system
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It will also help in identifying the relationships between predicted floods and the impact of the flood.
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The system will predict the impact on people, their houses and crops & livestock.
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This would help in mitigating the challenges that people face during flood.
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The system will also be useful in the efficient and effective contingency planning.
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This system uses the earth observation (EO) based information. This makes the system capable of being linked to any existing or future flood flow forecasting system.
Flood forecasting
Flood forecasting means the use of forecasted precipitation and streamflow data during the rainfall-runoff and streamflow. The mechanism is used to forecast the flow rates and water levels. It can forecast the details from a few hours to few days on the basis of the size of the watershed or river basin. It is an important component of flood warning.