Mumbai gets advanced flood warning system; Uddhav Thackeray, Dr. Harsh Vardhan inaugurate

Almost every year, the monsoon wreaks havoc on Mumbai as heavy showers coupled with high tide in the Arabian Sea causes flooding and brings the metropolis to a halt. But now, the city is set to get an advanced flood warning system that will estimate flooding three days in advance at a ward-level and will enable smart decision-making and field action based on risk assessment.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and Union Earth Sciences Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan on Friday launched the iFLOWS- Mumbai, a state-of-the-art Integrated Flood Warning System for Mumbai through video conference.

According to a press statement, the system will help make Mumbai become more resilient, by providing early warnings for flooding, especially during high rainfall events and cyclones. Using this, it will be possible to have an estimate of the flood inundation three days in advance, along with 3 to 6 hours Nowcast (immediate weather updates).

It will be very useful, especially if people need to be evacuated from low-lying areas as we will be able to forecast 12 hours in advance that a particular spot may get flooded. The system will also forecast the rainfall in each pocket.

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'Best early warning system'

In his address, Harsh Vardhan congratulated the scientists at the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) who developed the flood warning system and said Indians no less to anyone else in the whole world in terms of science.

“Mumbai floods, especially that occurred in 2005 and 2017 are etched in everyone’s memory. This highly advanced flood warning system will help the people of Mumbai in a big way. A similar system was already developed by MoES and is in operation at Chennai,” the minister stated. 

Harsh Vardhan further said that MoES scientists have developed the best early warning system for tsunami in the whole world and have never given a false alarm on this issue. This service has also been extended to the countries in the Indian Ocean Region who are being highly benefitted.  

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Gift to Mumbaikars

CM Uddhav Thackeray stated that the flood warning system developed is like a gift to the people of Mumbai. In the context of the health disaster as well as the recent Nisarga cyclone, he said that both blood management and flood management are equally important.

The Chief Minister congratulated the MoES and IMD scientists for the accurate prediction of Cyclone Nisarga and monsoon in the state. "Early prediction of Cyclone Nisarga by IMD helped the state government in saving the state from a bigger disaster and loss of lives," he said.

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How the prediction system works

The sophisticated system has been developed by MoES using its in-house expertise, in close collaboration with the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (BMC). The system uses rain gauge data and local data such as data on land use, land topography, drainage systems, water bodies in the city, tide levels, infrastructure and population, which has been provided by BMC.

Using these as inputs, the prediction system models weather, rainfall, runoff and water movement, tide and storm surge impacts based on which early Flood Warnings for the city will be provided. It will address the flood inundation due to rainfall, river bank breach, storm surge, obstruction of flow due to roads, buildings, rail lines, high tides and sea level rise.

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