Chennai effect: Govt to set up 100 more flood forecasting stations

The Central Water Commission (CWC) will set up 40 flood forecasting stations for the first time in four states and 60 more in states already having flood forecasting stations to cover more areas prone to flood.

The new flood forecasting stations will be set up in Arunachal Pradesh (3), Himachal Pradesh (1), Kerala (2), Rajasthan (12), Sikkim (8) and Tamil Nadu (14) during the current five year plan, the ministry of water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation stated in a release.

The Central Water Commission, which has, inter-alia, been entrusted with flood forecasting activities, has set up a network of 878 stations on major rivers and their tributaries so far.

At present, flood forecasts are issued for 176 stations (148 level forecast and 28 inflow forecast) using hydrological data from CWC's own network and quantitative precipitation forecast received from Flood Metrological Organisation (FMO) of India Metrological Department (IMD).

The existing flood forecasting network of CWC covers 19 states/UTs/NCT, 10 major river basins and 72 sub-basins.

So far, 445 stations have been modernised with automatic data collection and transmission systems. Mathematical models on rivers Jhelum, Alaknanda, Bhagirathi, Ganga, Brahmaputra, Yamuna, Chambal, Baitarani, Vamsadhara, Subarnarekha, Mahanadi, Tapi, Godavari and Krishna have been developed. The forecast is disseminated using the email, SMS and website facilities.

The modernisation of network includes installation of automatic sensor based data collection and satellite based data transmission systems for near real time flood forecasting and development of medium range hydrologic and hydraulic models with a warning time of up to 72 hours using one dimensional mathematical modeling tools, for effective flood forecasting.