Flood warning system likely in Chennai
Posted on: 25/Aug/2015 4:39:43 PM
As a move to cope with the north east monsoon, Chennai City corporation has developed early flood warning system for the city. The flood warning system will be studied by a team of officials who will head to cities in Telangana and Mumbai.
It will then be easy for us to prevent lives from loss and properties near Adyar, Cooum, Buckingham Canal, Kosasthalaiyar, etc. This needs proper commissioning of the system and issue of flood warning well beforehand. In areas prone to flooding that lie along the sides of water bodies, there are nearly 7 lakh buildings, states an estimate. This decision of implementing Real Time Decision Support System will be done upon study by Anna University.
The likeliness of rainfall in catchment areas will also be forecast as supported by a hydrology project. All the line agencies will be alerted to make necessary measures and prevent loss of property or lives by regulating excessive water.
In downstream areas and 130 water bodies, there always prevails a danger of flooding. This is because the city is unaware of the possible volume of water flow in each neighborhood.
Speaking about this, one of the officials say this system will be helpful in issuing warning well in advance to take necessary measures in downstream areas whenever there is excessive flow of water. It is based on the advice of Anna University that the installation of data acquisition system stations including automatic rain gauge, water level recorders, automatic climate stations, etc will be installed.
Compared to other cities, Chennai has got various gradients in its topography. The drainage system should be very well studied and a mechanism of draining water has to be developed before developing early flood warning system. It is highly important to interconnect all the water bodies. This is yet to be done, says N. Mathava, an expert in disaster management.
