The country’s Early Warning System for flood has yet to be able to provide real-time forecasting to people in order to minimise possible damage, speakers said at a discussion yesterday in the capital.
Speaking at the discussion titled “Ecosystems, People and Shared Learning: Experiences from Bangladesh-India Civil Society Dialogue,” they further said the early warnings could be more specific if Bangladesh could know the exact volume of water flowing down from uprivers in India.
Talking at the event, Dr Ainun Nishat, professor at Brac University and a hydrologist who served the Joints River Commission between Bangladesh and India for 18 years, said since the 1988 flood in the country, the Indian government has been sharing the water flow data of the common rivers between the two countries, but only in the monsoon and the data is not real-time.
“It is quite impossible for a lower riparian country like Bangladesh to forecast the exact time frame and duration of floods without having the information on the upstream water flow,” he said on the final day of the discussion yesterday.
However, he also expressed his hope in getting the real-time data from the neighbouring country as the Indian prime minister showed interest in enhancing regional cooperation.
Bangladesh, India and Nepal share the common ecosystem of Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna basin which contains several hundreds rivers to sustain the life of the ecosystem. Bangladesh covers only 8% of the total system.
Bangladesh and India have 54 common rivers, with the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Teesta being some of the major rivers among them.
Md Abdul Wazed, director general at the Department of Disaster Management, said despite having limitations, the country had been gradually improving in disseminating early warnings for flood.
“We can now forecast the possible condition of a flood for five days ahead, whereas before we could do only three days’ forecast. We are trying to develop the system more so that we can provide a 10-day forecast for the floods,” he said.
In addition, the government has created groups of volunteers consisting of around 50,000 people to help the disaster-affected people.
The two-day regional discussion was organised by International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Bangladesh under its Ecosystems for Life Project. Around 80 experts from Bangladesh and India participated at the event, held in the city’s Amari Hotel.