The recent flash flood in India.

Do you think if the interlinking project was implemented by the authority the recent disaster of flash flood would have not been this bad?

5 Answers

1. Uttrakhand and specially its himaliyan part is totally unpredictable.As many part of mountains,rivers,glaciers there are inaccessible,only satellite information is available.This inaccessible part can bring any kind of disaster at any moment.Again due to small falls passing by roads keeps the soil in wet and satuaratred position and trigger land slide any time.Again explosions done for dam construction affects lot to the soill and rocks there.Interlinking may be done taking into account the routes of rivers,but the disasters may change the river routes,which may affect the interlinking results in any manner.The best thing that can be done is a continuous monitoring of all glaciers,rivers,roads,mountains and soil.

2. The recent disaster is caused mostly by the land slides, the intensity of which could have been minimized if appropriate soil conservation measures were implemented and with a strict ban on occupying the flood-plains of the rivers in any manner. Since the geological formation of the Himalayas is said to be more unstable, its land uses are to be planned well with a good scientific base. Interlinking of rivers will be useful in avoiding /minimizing flood damages in the reaches down below the hill slopes where the rivers run in milder slopes with inadequate carrying capacity during the flash floods. So the interlinking of rivers will not be a relevant factor to be considered in the area affected now. The flood control in The Netherlands is an entirely different issue where the sea level is above the land.

3. One should first study what is the terrain of the Uttrakhand. The construction and development activities in the region has disregarded the ground realities. The construction activities have been done on river bed. The river flood plain has been restricted by the development and commercial activities. In my opinion , there is no possibility of interlinking of rivers within this Himalayan region. Probably the mini hydro projects have been constructed using improper design practices. The huge crowd of people travelling this region added to the problem. As usual no consideration was given to the rainfall warning. There are so many short comings of administrative machinery and policy makers, that this disaster was unavoidable. Now let us hope, the government of Uttranchal and Government of India will take corrective measures, so that such disaster may be avoided in future.

4. IBM harnesses power of Big Data to improve Dutch flood control and water management systems as Papiha have mentioned. The press release about the information from IBM members can accesses here http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/41385.wss

5. Hello Vikramsingh I am not an expert in interlinking project. But wanted to share with you that how IBM uses big data for flood control and water management project in the Netherlands. IBM has launched Digital Delta, a project that will use insights from big data to better manage flood control and water systems in the Netherlands. The solution will include precipitation measurements, water level and water quality monitors, levee sensors, radar data, model predictions, as well as current and historic maintenance data from sluices, pumping stations, locks and dams.