Central Water Commission to use Google technology to forecast floods

Google's technology will help to improve flood management and prediction systems.

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New Delhi: The Central Water Commission (CWC) has entered into an agreement with Google to improve flood forecast systems and disseminate flood-related information by using technology developed by the tech giant.

"The initiative is likely to help crisis management agencies to deal with extreme hydrological events in a better manner. Under this agreement, the CWC and Google will share technical expertise in various fields, including geospatial mapping and analysis of hydrological observation data," the Water Resources Ministry said in an official statement.

The CWC, which is an apex technical organization in the field of water resources, will use Google technology to improve flood prediction systems and will also use tech giant's earth engine to visualize and improve flood management.

Water Resources minister Nitin Gadkari also expressed hope that the collaboration with Google will help in effective flood management in India.

This initiative on flood forecast is likely to meet the much-awaited demand of the inhabitants of the flood-prone areas for inundation warnings with sufficient lead time.

Till 2016, the CWC was disseminating flood levels with maximum lead time of one day. During the flood season of 2017, the CWC resorted to rainfall-based modeling and issued flood advisories on a trial basis with 3 days lead time.