Jammu and Kashmir, UK Space Agency Join Hands For Impact-Based Flood Forecasts

In a significant move to put impact-based flood forecasting mechanism in place, the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir joined hands with UK Space Agency's programme for a collaborative project on "Impact Based Flood Forecasting using Earth Observation (EO) based Information," said an official statement on Friday.

According to the statement, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha termed the project as the next step of flood forecasting services.

"Having impact-based forecasts of flood risk will be useful for efficient, effective contingency planning and swift evaluation of severity for necessary response", the Lt Governor said.

Mr Sinha said that international collaboration adds specific value in helping analyse past flood events and identifying relationships between predicted floods and their impact.

"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," he added.

According to a recent report, India is among the 10 most disaster-prone countries in the world and ranked floods as a climate-related hazard posing the greatest risk to the people. the country 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, the statement said.

In UT, there is no effective impact-based flood forecasting mechanism in place as such. This move will help to predict fluvial flood risks, in terms of expected loss to life, injuries to people, building collapse, infrastructure disruption, and economic damage.

The framework will be capable of being linked to any existing or future flood flow forecasting system. The J&K government will not have to bear any expenses on the project.

It added that the National Space Innovation Programme (NSIP) is a new programme established by the UK Space Agency which supports collaborative projects between UK organisations and international partners. The project will be undertaken by HR Wallingford in collaboration with Oxford University, Sayers and Partners (SPL), and D-Orbit (UK).