Brahamaputra Basin

Brahamaputra Basin
5.2 Flood forecasting sites
Flood forecasting is an important component of flood warning, where the distinction between the
two is that the outcome of flood forecasting is a set of forecast time-profiles of channel flows or
river levels at various locations, while "flood warning" is the task of making use of these forecast to
make decisions about whether warnings of floods should be issued to the general public or whether
previous warnings should be rescinded or retracted.
Central Water Commission, Ministry of Water Resources has set up a network of flood forecasting
stations covering all important flood prone rivers. Brahmaputra basin covers a part of the most flood
prone areas of the country. Flood forecasting has been recognized as the most important, reliable
and cost effective non-structural measures for flood mitigation. Two kinds of forecasts are issued
based on the utility of the forecast. Inflow forecasts assist in reservoir regulation (full reservoir level
& maximum water level) and the level forecast is used for predicting water level (warning level &
danger level) well ahead of its occurrence.
The Central Water Commission operates 27 flood forecasting stations for Level forecast as shown in
the Table 12. Distributions of the Flood Forecasting Sites are shown in Map 17. The details of the
attributes realted to these flood forecasting sites are listed in Annexure VI: B.
5.3 Meteorological stations
Table 12. Types of flood forecasting stations of CWC
Sl. No. Station Type Number Of Stations
1 Level forecast 27
2 Inflow Forecast 0
There are 114 CWC Observation Stations and 27 flood forecasting stations in the basin maintained
by Central Water Commission. These stations are established to understand the relationship
between meteorological parameter and river dynamics. Under the supervision of ISRO there are 89
AWS are established in the basin as shown in Table 13. The integrated approach of measuring
meteorological parameter using Automated Weather Stations (AWS) is helpful in the remote region
where due to climatic conditions and difficult terrain manual observation of data is not possible. This
AWS required a minimum maintenance and the data is generated on the temporal basis. These
stations are maintained and data stored by the MOSDAC.
Table 13. Meteorological stations
Sl. No. Organisation Number of Stations
1 CWC Observation Stations 114
2 IMD Stations 109
3 ISRO AWS Stations 89
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