Monsoon Floods Early Warning: Monitoring Rainfall and River Levels

Upstream

LCG DER Mtg.16 July 2008

UN WFP/ Disaster Risk Reduction

Overview

Why upstream monitoring important for Monsoon Monitoring, Early Warning, and Preparedness

Some easily accessible sources of rainfall and river levels upstream

Monitoring for awareness, and potential future analysis

Why upstream monitoring is important ?

Why upstream monitoring is important ?

In an average year, 844,000 million cubic metre of water flows into the country during the humid period (May to October) through the three main rivers the ganges, the Brahmaputra-Jamuna and the meghna. This volume is 95% of the total annual inflow. By comparison only about 187,000 million cu m of streamflow is generated by rainfall inside the country during the same period.

95% of water from in-flow; 5% from rainfall in Bangladesh

Source: Banglapedia

Where to find data on river levels upstream? Indian Govmt. : Central Water Commission

(CWC)

Indian CWC; Sample OutputsSummary Report: Sites Above Warning

Level

Indian CWC; Sample Outputs

Individual Station Level Data: Assam Guwahati

Individual Station Level Data: Assam Dibrugarh

Upstream River Flow Data: Dartmouth Flood Observatory

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~floods/index.html

Upstream River Flow Data: Dartmouth Flood Observatory: River Watch Data

Rainfall Data Upstream: Indian Met Dept.

India: IMD

NASA TRMM Rainfall Estimates: Satellite Based

NASA TRMM Rainfall Estimates: Satellite Based

Closing Thoughts Monsoon Flood Early Warning and

Preparedness can be significantly improved via greater utilization of Upstream Data

Data availability is much better than most of us realise

Creative approaches (i.e. GIS etc …) should be used to better understand upstream-downstream dynamics; … i.e. significant events upstream, and timing… impacts downstream