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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
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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 ? • 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
Upstream River Flow Data: Dartmouth Flood Observatory http://www.dartmouth.edu/~floods/index.html
Upstream River Flow Data: Dartmouth Flood Observatory: River Watch Data
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