Identification

Title

Extended-range probabilistic forecasts of Ganges and Brahmaputra floods in Bangladesh

Abstract

A new ensemble prediction scheme was developed for probabilistic flood forecasting in Bangladesh. Skill is found to 10-15 days. In 2007-8 it was used to evacuate people along the Brahmaputra well ahead of flooding. We have developed a new extended-range flood forecasting system for large river basins that uses satellite data and statistically rendered probabilistic weather and climate predictions to initialize basin scale hydrological models. The forecasting system overcomes the absence of upstream flow data, a problem that is prevalent in the developing world. Forecasts of the Ganges and Brahmaputra discharge into Bangladesh were made in real time on 1-10 day time horizons for the period 2003 to 2008. Serious flooding of the Brahmaputra occurred in 2004, 2007 and 2008. Detailed forecasts of the flood onset and withdrawal were made 10 days in advance for each of the flooding events with correlations at 10 days ≤ 0.8 and Brier scores < 0.05. Extensions to 15 days show useable skill. Based on the 1-10 day forecasts of the 2007 and 2008 floods, emergency managers in Bangladesh were able to act preemptively, arrange the evacuation of populations in peril along the Brahmaputra and minimize financial loss. The particular application of this forecast scheme in Bangladesh represents a "world is flat" approach to emergency management through the collaboration of scientists in Europe (generating global ensemble meteorological and climate forecasts), the U.S. (developing and producing the integrated flood forecasts), and the developing world (integrating the flood forecasts into their disaster management decision-making protocol), all enabled by high-speed internet. We also make suggestions of how scientific and technical collaborations between more developed and developing nations can be improved to increase their prospects for sustaining the technology adoption and transfer.

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document

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http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7bg2q83

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Dataset language

eng

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geoscientificInformation

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title

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publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

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publication

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2010-11-01T00:00:00Z

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Copyright 2010 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.

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OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

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pointOfContact

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