Dynamic flood warning system: An integrated approach to disaster mitigation in Bangladesh
Warning is crucial in emergency management
Adequate flood warning is a crucial element in emergency management, and operations of all of the systems around flood forecasting that actually deals with. Being able to give information on what's going on, and provide an adequate warning time to all of the public and emergency responders. To be able to have them, get out of harms way. Be able to remove them without putting themselves in greater jeopardy. So, our aim is to develop a user friendly Flood Warning System (Figure 6) to support flood warning in advance at 72 hrs, 48hrs and 24hrs. Maps of the flood affected land use features, such as roads; agricultural lands, population and households can be released for above warning time stamps. In addition, complete statistics will also be available about the affected region. The information of population, land use, infrastructure etc to be affected will be available in term of user-friendly queries for timely decision for flood preparedness.  Figure.6: A Customized Flood Warning System Conclusion We cannot avoid flood, but by implementing effective flood prevention schemes, we can reduce damages from severity, if sufficient information for flood forecasting is given timely. Dynamic use of GIS integrated with hydrodynamic model provides useful measures towards disaster preparedness and planning. This dynamic model can be automated fully to be accomplished with the existing flood warning system to provide warning for the people without the knowledge of GIS to identify the possible inundated areas to take initiative to evacuate people to the safe places in time. It can help to promote public awareness in disaster management activities as a part of focusing the dissemination of forecast at the grass-root level. Therefore, new flood control / management schemes based on dynamic model can be implemented for important disaster management aspects like prevention/ mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery and also planning for operational activities, immediately before, during and after flood. Further Reading Annual Flood Report, 1998, Flood Forecasting & Warning Centre Processing & Flood Forecasting Circle, Bangladesh Water Development Board, Government of The People's Republic of Bangladesh 1998. "Evaluation of a scientific System of Flood Forecasting and Warning in the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna River Basins"1997, International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage, Proceedings of the Seminar on Bangladesh National Committee of ICID (BANCID). Evaluation Report (1993),' A Study of the Debate on Flood Control in Bangladesh", Flood Action Plan, Netherlands Development Cooperation. Biography of the Authors
We express our gratitude to Japanese Govt. to provide scholarship for Master Degree in AIT to Ms. Farah Aziz. We thank to DANIDA for arranging research grant that made this research possible. We also thank to Surface Water Modeling Center (SWMC), Flood Forecasting Warning Center (FFWC) and Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) authorities, Bangladesh, whose co-operation made every possible way for the availability of Hydrological and GIS data during fieldwork. Affiliation of the Principal Author Ms. Farah Aziz is working as a project researcher in Asian Center for Research on Remote Sensing (ACRoRS), School of Advanced Technologies. She received M. Engg. in the field of Remote Sensing and GIS from Space Technology Application & Research Program in the School of Advanced Technologies in AIT in the year 2001.
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