KOCHI: Floods, cyclones and landslides. Kerala has been at the receiving end of the vagaries of an unpredictable weather, and has been in dire need of a forecasting system.
Such a pioneering system has been installed in the Periyar and Chalakudy river basins, courtesy Equinoct. The tech startup has set up the flood forecast system in collaboration with the Community Resource Centre in Puthanvelikkara and the Ernakulam District Disaster Management Authority.
Equinoct MD C Jayaraman said, “This is the first community-sourced impact-based flood forecast and early warning system. It is designed to assist the local population in navigating the increasingly severe annual weather events, particularly floods, brought on by climate change and human factors that aggravate it.”
“This collective initiative is a significant step towards enhancing disaster preparedness, mitigation, rescue, and rehabilitation,” Jayaraman told TNIE.
Equinoct is one of the eight start-ups selected from seven countries by the UNICEF Office of Innovation’s First Climate Tech Cohort.
“We have developed the community-sourced impact-based flood forecast and warning system that can be replicated in other vulnerable areas of the country," said Jayaraman.
"Eighty monitoring stations have been installed in the two river basins to collect rainfall, river, and groundwater level data with the help of a dedicated community volunteer network. To strengthen the facility, we have also developed a ‘climate dashboard’ with the support of community volunteers in the river basins,” he added.
With visual representations, this dashboard can collect, collate, analyse, and display multiple data on climate and water-related variables daily. This can be extremely useful for making informed decisions on disaster preparedness and issuing early warnings during potential disasters, he added.
Jayaraman said around 100 rain gauges, river water level gauges and groundwater gauges have been installed at various spots of the river basins.
“The data on rainfall, river, tidal, and groundwater levels, primarily collected by students, women, and youth at the household level using manual gauges, are gathered through our ‘gather mobile app’ or collated by partnering community organisations. The data is then analysed and visualised through the EQUINOCT web portal,” said Jayaraman.
He said, “The dashboard brings together data from a network of community volunteers and various government departments. By filling data gaps and connecting multiple datasets, it can become even more powerful. The climate dashboard is a collaborative project involving the Ernakulam District Disaster Management Authority, Equinoct, and BPCL Kochi Refinery-supported Resilient Destinations Foundation, a registered not-for-profit organisation.”
“At the moment, flood forecasts are only available for 332 river locations in the country. However, there is a lack of detailed flood inundation maps for different weather and river conditions and insufficient local flood action plans for the affected communities and disaster management authorities,’’ he said.
The project involves community members of different age and backgrounds, including seven-year-old Ivana, nine-year-old Elna, and 81-year-old Prof Vimala Devi. The data collected will be used to create early warning systems.