Question : Technology for Forecasting Flood

(a) the technology used by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) to forecast and prevent flood situations in the country;

(b) the comparison of the technology used in the country viz-a-viz Global Standards;

(c) whether the Government planning to improve the current forecasting technology so as to predict and prevent wide scale destruction of floods and if so, the details thereof;

(d) the proposals and committee recommendations that Government had received in the last three years in this regard?

THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR MINISTRY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AND
MINISTRY OF EARTH SCIENCES
(SHRI Y. S. CHOWDARY)

(a) In order to meet specific requirements of flood forecasting, which is provided by Central Water Commission (CWC), Ministry of Water Resources, India Meteorological Department (IMD) operates Flood Meteorological Offices (FMOs) at thirteen locations viz., Agra, Ahmedabad, Asansol, Bhubaneshwar, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jalpaiguri, Lucknow, New Delhi, Patna, Srinagar , Bengaluru and Chennai. Apart from this, IMD also supports Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) by providing Quantitative Precipitation Forecast (QPF) for Damodar river basin areas for their flood forecasting activities.

During the flood season, FMOs provide valuable meteorological support to the CWC for issuing flood warnings in respect of the 43 rivers of India covering 146 river basins. CWC is working in close association with IMD and State Governments for timely flood forecast whenever the river water level rises above warning level.

To meet the requirement of State Governments, IMD Officers invariably attend all the meetings called by the State Governments for reviewing the preparedness on floods by various agencies.
(b) Generation of QPF currently used at 146 river basins of India for assessing the flood inundation scenario by CWC is at par with the global standards.
(c) At present Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model forecast for QPF at river basin level is generated at 9 km grid scale. Research efforts are currently made to asses 3 km scale WRF based rainfall at sub basin level on experimental mode.
(d) Does not arise.