Bangladesh Community Flood Information System
Client: U.S. Agency for International Development
Location: Bangladesh
Period: 2002 – 2008
Project Summary
Riverside staff conducting a workshop.
Bangladesh required a flood warning system specific to the local hydrology with actionable information and messages that Bangladeshi villagers could understand. Working with Bangladeshi partners, Riverside Technology, inc. implemented and successfully adapted the latest flood forecasting technologies, and developed specific methods to disseminate accurate and timely flood warning messages to the village level.
Project Details
The Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna Rivers in India and Bangladesh have a history of excessive floods that put millions of people living in the floodplains at risk. In a normal year, 25 percent of Bangladesh is flooded, and in an excessive flood year, up to 65 percent of the country is flooded. Despite this constant and pervasive flooding, Bangladesh lacks an effective system for providing useful flood forecasts or other flood warning information to local government agencies and communities. The present system of government-issued flood warnings is presented in both a context and a format that are neither understood nor usable by the floodplain inhabitants.
Riverside Technology, inc. (Riverside) received a research and development grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) to work with Bangladesh’s Center for Environment and Geographic Information Support (CEGIS) and the Bangladesh Disaster Preparedness Centre (BDPC) to develop and implement a community flood information system for Bangladesh.
The operational system that was developed provides accurate and timely information on current and forecasted flood conditions for a part of Bangladesh’s floodplain. The system includes hydrologic models, geographic information systems (GIS), and remote sensing technologies for generating flood information. The information is disseminated to the local government and communities through cell phones and text messaging in a format that is understood and useful for flood mitigation at the community level. The community flood warning models and dissemination methods developed under this project are being taken up by the Bangladesh government and development partners in larger floodplain areas.