The New Nation - Internet Edition

BSS, Dhaka

Recently adopted flood forecasting technologies as part of the country's disaster preparedness will bring significant changes in saving lives and properties and reducing investment losses to the farmers, experts said.

The scientists observed that the community people those are most vulnerable to disaster, from now on, might not incur agriculture-investment losses as they are now capable of harvesting their major crops ahead of flood.

Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) and the BWDB jointly implementing the project.

Technical specialist of Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC) Dr SHM Fakhruddin told BSS that Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) has adopted a long-time flood forecasting technology instead of existing 3-day (72 hours) to cope with the perilous impact of climate change.

The technology consist three-type of forecast schemes-short term (1-10 days), Medium term (20-25 days) and long term (1-6 months) are successfully being applied by using European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWFC).

Five pilot areas have already been selected for testing the application of newly introduced long-lead flood forecasting technology. The regions are Rajpur union of Lalmonirhat district, Unia union of Gaibandha district, Kaijuri union Sirajganj district Bekra Atgram union of Tangail district and Gazirtek union of Faridpur district.

"The decision of reaping the crops should be taken in early July before its complete maturity or wait until middle of July to ensure good quality", he said.

Harvesting during mid-July before its maturity might cause significant damage to crops due to excessive rain and onrush of water, said Dr Fakhruddin.

Besides, a 10-year disaster management plan has been taken under the framework of Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), a comprehensive environmental data and information provider worldwide, to improve sustainable water resources management in the country.

Under the plan, Bangladesh is going to evolve another flood recasting model and to be applied in River Meghna and the country's remaining river basins will be brought under the model in phases attuned to the Meghna model.