Flood Warning and Evacuation Program in Bangladesh
By Patrick Kennedy
Bangladesh
is one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world.
Located in the Bay of Bengal
and surrounded by India,
natural hazards like storm surging from cyclones, and severe flooding
during
the monsoon season are annual events for this country.
Due to its extremely limited resources, Bangladesh
would perish as a country if it were not for the integration of
disaster
mitigation programs. Two such mitigation
programs that exist to help save lives, property and resources from the
severe
flooding in certain regional river basins are the Forecasting Flood and
Warning
Center (FFWC) and the Surface Water Modeling Center (SWMC), which
officially
was, renamed the Institute of Water Modeling (IWM).
The FFWC located
in the capital city of Dhaka
was built in 1972 to help warn and evacuate people during natural
flooding
hazards. It operates the “Flood
Information Center” as the focal point in connection with the Bureau of
Disaster Management for both cyclone and flood hazards.
This centralized flood-warning center,
similar to a weather station center, has the capability to collect,
analyze
(real-time), model and disseminate flood forecasting and warnings to
government
and media outlets via internet, data and voice communications.
However, the
requirements for a more sophisticated model of
the water system was needed in order to accurately and quantitatively
predict
flood levels. The Surface Water Modeling
Center (SWMC) was
established
immediately after the disastrous floods of 1987 and 1988 that
“submerged more
than half the country, and killed an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 people”. To mitigate the damaging effects,
flood
forecasting and flood preparedness were important functions that needed
to be
integrated to the local governments and communities in order to give
advanced
warnings.
For example, the
SWMC created a “Flood Forecasting model,
termed as the super model. The model
operates on a near real-time basis and is able to generate highly
accurate
estimates of future flood levels up to 48 hours in advance”. “In 1998, when Bangladesh
experienced the worst flood of the century, the flood-forecasting model
provided forecasts in the region of (+/-
3) cm at locations close to the capital. Such information was vital for
a
number of other government and non-government organizations to plan
emergency
measures”. By delivering more accurate
flood forecasts, warnings and other advanced observations this enabled
efficient management of facilities and resources as well as the
evacuation of
many people who lived on and flood-prone lands.
Knowing the
vulnerability of the country to natural
disaster, the government of Bangladesh
has been making continuous efforts to incorporate flood disaster
mitigation
programs while improving existing flood-forecasting systems to make
communities
safer.
Source: www.iwmbd.org, www.ffwc.net
For
more Information From the Institute of Water Modeling Contact;
Emaduddin Ahmad,
Executive Director, eua@iwmbd.org.