E-Paper
MNNIT Prof?s novel plan to tackle disasters
AT A time when cities and its citizens are facing flood hazards, threat of terrorism and fear of earthquakes, an expert of Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology (MNNIT) is all set to take on and defy disasters with fundas of management.
AT A time when cities and its citizens are facing flood hazards, threat of terrorism and fear of earthquakes, an expert of Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology (MNNIT) is all set to take on and defy disasters with fundas of management.
Prof RK Srivastava of MNNIT's Civil Engineering department has come up with a disaster management plan based on Geographic Information System (GIS), flood hazard zone map and an early warning system.
"Disaster can be classified under natural and man-made heads. Disasters like earthquakes, floods and land slides can not be controlled, however the effect and damage caused during such disaster can be mitigated through effective disaster management plan based on Hazard zonation, Remote Sensing , Geographic Information System (GIS) and the Global Positioning System (GPS)," says Prof Srivastava.
He said that remote sensing can be very effective and advantageous for detailed near real-time monitoring, damage assessment as well as long-term relief. Remote Sensing plays a crucial role in efficient assessment and mitigation of disasters.
Throwing light over GIS, he said that GIS can be used for creating an integrated geo-database on natural resources, biological, meteorological, hydrological, socio-economic and demographic parameters among others.
"This geo-database can subsequently be used in modelling the disasters to reflect the vulnerability of an area. The role of GIS as decision support is already proven and it is bound to increase over the next few years," he explained.
Proposing a GIS based Decision Support System (DSS) for disaster management in Allahabad and the forthcoming Ardh Kumbh, Prof Srivastava said that it can be implemented through the mapping of various ingredients classified into five major heads including floating population and permanently residing population comprising elderly, children, disabled women, hazards comprising traffic jam, stampede, fire, disruption in water supply/electric supply, pontoon bridge failure, embankment stability, boat accidents, waste disposal and long-term action plan consisting of development of GIS based Disaster Management Plan, trained stake holders/response team, procurement of equipment and training of personnel.
He said that GIS based system can be used as an integrated administrative and decision support system to respond to the immediate humanitarian and disaster relief operation during and after the event.
In particular, GIS for disaster management will be applicable in visualisation of spatial distribution of events during the occurrence of a disaster, identification of location of various utilities/service centres in the affected area, maintenance of critical communication linkages between affected areas with rest of the world and facilitating continuous monitoring of the situation besides feed back response.
Explaining the functioning and importance of GIS mapping in disaster management, he said that a GIS of Allahabad would facilitate the district administration to have instant access to the required human assets and other resource at the hours of needs.
He further maintained such GIS would have information about the hospitals, doctors, schools, colleges and other basic infrastructure which can be used during the disaster mitigation effort.
Citing the examples of quake-prone countries like Japan, Prof Srivastava said that many earthquake-affected countries have undertaken GPS and other Geodetic Studies to monitor seismotectonic activities.
It may be mentioned that Union Government has recently passed Disaster Management Act -2005. The Act has provisions for constitution of a three-tier disaster mitigation mechanism comprising national, state and district level committees to counter any manmade or natural disasters.
During a recent meeting of the district disaster management committee, convened by Allahabad District Magistrate Amrit Abhijat in line to the recent directives and guidelines issued by Central Government, Prof Srivastava presented his plan before the officials for the very first time.
