Will Assam's flood mitigation efforts be boosted by atlas & warning systems?

Guwahati, August 11: In a bid to mitigate the menace of floods in Assam, the North East Space Applications Centre (NESAC) has identified approximately 271 wetlands in the state to channel the overflowing waters of the Brahmaputra and other rivers during the monsoons.

The NESAC, under the Department of Space (DoS), has also generated a river atlas that includes a database of the Brahmaputra River, its drainage patterns and networks, embankment locations, and road-rail networks at a scale of 1:5000.

This atlas will aid in planning and better managing water resources in the state.

NESAC, a joint initiative of DoS and the North Eastern Council (NEC), was established on September 5, 2000, and has been supporting regional development by providing advanced space technology solutions such as maps and atlases.

In 2009, NESAC developed the Flood Early Warning System (FLEWS), which was initially implemented as a pilot project in the state.

By 2010, the system was extended to four more districts and later to 14 districts in Assam. FLEWS uses numerical rainfall prediction combined with a physics-based distributed hydrological model in the GIS domain to predict floods and devise mitigation strategies for the annual deluge.

The system enables the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) to issue alerts with a lead time of 24 to 36 hours.

Additionally, the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), in collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), has prepared an atlas for Assam using satellite data from 1998 to 2023.

This flood zonation atlas will serve as a non-structural resource for managing flood hazards and provide crucial information for constructing relief and rehabilitation centres.

The Central Water Commission (CWC), an attached office of the Ministry of Jal Shakti, employs non-structural measures such as flood forecasts to announce impending deluge and inundation in various states during the monsoons.

This assists state governments in flood management. According to Nityanand Rai, Minister of State in Parliament, the CWC's flood forecasting services include hydro-meteorological stations, flood monitoring stations, flood forecasting stations, inundation forecasting, and advisory forecasts.

The CWC provides 7-day advisory flood forecasts using basin-specific mathematical models and has developed an app called FloodWatch.

This app uses satellite data analysis, mathematical modelling, and real-time monitoring to deliver accurate flood forecasts.

It also incorporates weather forecasts from the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) and real-time satellite rainfall estimates.

The CWC has established hydrological observation stations across all river basins in the country, including 58 major hydrological observation sites on the Brahmaputra and 67 sites in the Barak basin.

This year, the Assam floods have claimed over 130 lives, causing widespread destruction to land and property.

While Home Minister Amit Shah has suggested that at least 50 large ponds should be created in the northeastern region to divert the Brahmaputra’s overflow, this may not be a complete solution.

Experts point out that heavy floods are exacerbated by deforestation, poor drainage systems, and unplanned urbanisation.

Although opposition groups advocate for declaring the annual deluge a national disaster, Assam Chief Minister Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma believes such a declaration would be unproductive, and the Centre is actively seeking a permanent solution to the issue.