IT 1 O 1 : Tsunamis That Rocked Himalayan Valley “We are the authors of our own disasters” - Jim Wallis (Political activist) The above quote aptly describe the disaster condition we are seeing in the various districts of Uttrakhand . I have been there to the very same places which were being flashed constantly and had a quite different memory of those places – “ Sound of the gushing waters of Alkananda river reverberating in the silence of the Himalayan valleys has a very soothing and healing effect on our soul”. But apart from this I also have a quite intriguing memory of the so called “RIVER VIEW” 3star hotel at that time to I asked my grandpa that whether these hotels are safe enough he said only one thing they are “GOVT. APPROVED” . In the last week many of us may have switched on our television to check out what’s going in the Kedarnath Valley, How many more are left stranded there , How many more have lost their struggle with this disaster. Many of my readers might be wondering that why after ERP I have turned on to an issues of National , social and political (Thanks to our so called Politicians) importance. How come Flash floods and cloud burst of Uttrakhand are related to I.T. sector this might be one of the question arising in your minds. So to answer them all I will be throwing some light on what are flash floods and cloud burst then in the later part of my article I will briefly try to give a jest of an early warning system for flash floods and how IT sector plays a axial role not only in this forecast model but also in disaster management. Lets learn Geography: What is flash flood? What is cloud burst? Almost yearly as soon as monsoon approaches Indian subcontinent it comes with the some treasured gifts of good crop yield , but as each coin two faces monsoon has it too. The other facet of monsoon come to our notice in form sensational images of disaster such as cloud burst , floods and flash floods. Last year too cloud burst and flash floods in the Leh Ladakh region ruined lives of many and gave a sever set back to the development of that region. Now what are cloud burst ? – Do literary cloudburst and god spills a bucket full of water over a region. In geographical terms cloud burst is used to notify an extreme amount of precipitation, which last only for few minutes or hours. Meteorologically rain fall rate equal to or greater than 100mm per hour is termed as cloudburst. Some recent unfortunate instances of cloud burst in Indian subcontinent are – “August 5 , 2010 Leh ladakh region received 250 mm of rainfall in 1 hour , July26 , 2005 Mumbai region received 1,448mm in 10 hours”. Now how these two terms flash floods and cloud burst are closely related. One category of natural hazard, flash floods, rarely garners that level of attention. Yet according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), flash floods are the most lethal form of natural hazard (based upon the ratio of fatalities to people affected), and cause millions of dollars in property damage every year. This is because flash floods, which are flood events of short duration with a relatively high peak discharge, tend to occur frequently but at a very small scale. Flash floods often impact poorer populations in remote locations. Individually they rarely capture news headlines, but cumulatively they can severely undermine a region’s development. A Flash flood is generally defined as rapid onset flood of short duration generally due to cloud bursts ,hurricanes, rapid melting of an ice dam (Its generally a glacier holding thousand gallons of water inside it). Flash floods are distinguished from a regular flood by a timescale of less than six hours. There are a lot of causes behind a flash flood which cumulatively trigger such events. Early Warning System : Building a Global Warning Capability In Jaunary2005, the United Nations convened the Second World conference on Disaster reduction in Kobe , Hyogo, Japan. In this conference in which 168 countries took part the paradigm for disaster risk management was broadened from simply post disaster response to a more comprehensive approach that also includes prevention and preparedness measures. In this Conference a new term “Early Warning Systems” was coined and components of effective EWS were illustrated , it includes ->Detecting and mapping periodical data of last 10 years and developing a forecast model ->Assessing the potential risk and integrating risk information from the last occurrences of these hazards in that area. ->Developing a monitoring system by means of sophisticated networks which can collect and transmit real time data and produce warning messages in time ->Community based emergency planning, preparedness and training focused on effective response to warnings to reduce the potential impact on live and livelihoods. Now Many of you be wondering that I have gone bit of track but here it comes the main question -” How IT sector is involved in this ?”. Most of you would have anticipated that 3points in this EWS are linked to IT sector mainly the 3rd point. Lets us take the example of EWS Flash Floods , To generate monitoring system we need real time data (Truth data directly from the region) and satellite data or projected data to collect all this we need a sophisticated networks which are connected to both the device network collecting the real time data and the satellite network. Now to make it more simple you may all have heard of Rain gauge this a device used for measuring rainfall received. These devices can be linked to specific radars which then further can be connected to server network which will have the related database and meteorological computation algorithms that will process the data in order to generate an hourly report. These server networks will be provided at each of the monitoring center which will be connected to a central system. The monitoring system will further process data from gauge networks to prepare graphical display and mapped display of the report in order to make the planning process less cumbersome. The Graphical reports will make it easy for the data analysts to compare it Flash flood Guidance manuals and produce an Early warning message. Now this process which I have summarized briefly needs involvement of great IT professionals as we need to develop a computer software applications to maintain the database, make decisions(Algorithms) and maintain a situational awareness. Secondly major concern is to have backup communication networks for the rain gauge network as due to some circumstantial limitation they might fail. We need proper maintenance of these hardware device networks as well as for the communication network involved in this. In the Kedarnath valley crisis we even lacked backup communication network and this delayed the rescue by hours where each hour a precious human life was losing struggle to disaster. For my curious friends I would sincerely suggest this research paper on EWS by US Meteorological department for further reference meted.ucar.edu/communities/hazwarnsys/ffewsrg/FF_EWS.pdf A Ray of New hope : To conclude this article I would suggest some of my personal views on this natural disaster which turned out to be a havoc due to some serious planning failures. We all know about Masnrovar Yatra conducted yearly by the joint venture of Indian and the Chinese authorities. Recently I read at travelogue on Mansarovar Yatra and I was amazed to see the excellent planning structure behind this successful and glorious yatra. Each year only a limited of number of groups are allowed to attend this yatra. The Groups to have a limited number of travelers so that appropriate arrangements can be done without disrupting the nature’s system. On the contrary Kedranath and Badrinath yatra lack this, at peak time of the season there are approximately a million travelers and to manage these travelers indiscriminate urbanization has taken place in these valley putting at stake the disaster management. Secondly the use of high intensity explosive in name of newly proposed Hydro Power projects have lead to development creeks and cracks in these mountain which work a potential triggers for landslide. Indiscriminate deforestation has resulted into soil erosion and has degraded the water retention capacity of the soil. One thing what I noticed that the local authorities in the area were not having any satellite phone facility though its a known fact that quite often communication network fail in these circumstances and particularly in this unfortunate chain of events From my point of view its high time for Indian politician to put a stop on their trivial vote bank politics and to tackle this matter of urgency with at most priority as the system like EWS need political will and great technical minds for its implement. Tech giants of India Like TCS and Infosys should take an initiative to develop such system in association with the government authorities. To conclude this article of mine I would say only one thing – “We have the required infrastructure , if have the required talent , What we need is Will. Will power to implement these systems and to maintain them” . I pray from core of my heart that god almighty may bestow his blessing on the troubled citizens of the Uttrakhand , may he give mental strength to the ones of have lost their everything in this havoc, May ignite a New hope in these traumatized minds Shubham Pachori NUHope Team
Posted on: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 17:42:58 +0000
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