J&K joins initiative by UK Space Agency for new flood forecasting mechanism in Valley

Pointing out that international collaboration adds specific value in helping analyse past flood events and identifying relationships between predicted floods and their impact, he said the mechanism will predict impacts to people, their houses, crops, livestock and transport routes, thereby mitigating many of the challenges people face during flood events.

A recent report has put India among the 10 most disaster-prone countries in the world and ranked flood as a climate-related hazard, posing the greatest risk to people. India has numerous flood forecasting systems that provide predictions of water levels and flows but not their impact in terms of loss of life, damage to buildings, critical infrastructure and agriculture.

In J&K, there is no effective impact-based flood forecasting mechanism in place as such, an official statement here said. It is a big initiative taken by the Lt Governor as it will help to predict fluvial flood risks, in terms of expected loss to life, injuries to people, building collapse, infrastructure disruption and economic damage, it added. The framework will be capable of being linked to any existing or future flood flow forecasting system and the UT administration will not have to bear any expenses for the project, it said.

Under its National Space Innovation Programme (NSIP), the UK Space Agency supports collaborative projects between organisations based in Britain and their international partners. The project for accurate flood forecasting will be undertaken by HR Wallingford in collaboration with Oxford University, Sayers & Partners (SPL) and D-Orbit (UK), the statement added.