Author(s): Neeraj Kumar*, Deepak Lal, Shakti Suryavanshi, Vivekanand Rawat, Akash Anand, Ajaz Ahmad1 and Mukesh Kumar
Emergency evacuation during a flood becomes difficult due to the unavailability of various scientific evidence, tools, and, most importantly, near real-time data. Every year millions of lives are affected due to floods worldwide. In most cases, the preparedness to use inland waterways system is ignored. In India, thousands of river systems are abandoned, and they can be used for evacuation using inland waterways networks. The development of a precise water level information system with operational in both day and night time is highly required for this purpose. The organizations working in this field are facing the same problem of inaccurate depth information. A study has been conducted to develop an information system using near real-time discharge data. The HEC RAS model, along with Sentinel 1 satellite imageries and Glofas discharge data, have been used for this study. The output obtained by the study is useful for identifying the depth of the river for inland waterway navigation. Using the information, it is easy to reach the remote places surrounded by the flood. The method is tested on the ground and easily replicable to other river systems across the world during disaster relief operations.
