Important Facts For Prelims
Disaster Management Tool
- 12 Sep 2019
- 2 min read
The State Government of Maharashtra to come up with a disaster risk management tool for reducing the damage that is caused by floods.
- The project will be supported by the United States Trade and Development Agency (USTDA- an independent American think tank).
- According to a preliminary report of the USTDA, between 2005 and 2015, over 3,000 people died in floods in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) alone.
- The report stated that in the state there were many loopholes in the system such as,
- Vulnerable disaster-prone areas were not being properly identified,
- New infrastructure projects that were taken up did not take the hazard levels under consideration.
- The report recommended that the government must implement a flood management and vulnerability risk framework through an integrated technology platform.
- According to the report, there is a need to devise a disaster vulnerability risk index.
- A vulnerability index could include a measurement framework with key indicators for reliability assessment, & responding to data quality issues.
- The index will comprise of 3 key components:
- Assessment of vulnerable zones,
- Monitoring the flood impact, and
- The undertaking of continuous assessment.
- A similar tool was designed earlier in Brazil and Thailand, on GIS-based flood maps and zoning for early warning and forecasts.
- A real-time decision support system provides short and medium-term flood forecasting, reducing the damaging impact of floods.
