Drones, supercomputers and sonar deployed against floods AP | 21 April 2019
https://www.thehansindia.com/tech/drones-supercomputers-and-sonar-deployed-against-floods-522826
An arsenal of new technology is being put to the test
fighting floods this year as rivers inundate towns and farm
fields across the central United States.
Drones, supercomputers and sonar that scans deep
underwater are helping to maintain flood control projects
and predict just where rivers will roar out of their banks.
Together, these tools are putting detailed information to
use in real time, enabling emergency managers and people
at risk to make decisions that can save lives and property,
said Kristie Franz, associate professor of geological and
atmospheric sciences at Iowa State University. Also Read
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The cost of this technology is coming down even as
disaster recovery becomes more expensive, so “anything
we can do to reduce the costs of these floods and natural
hazards is worth it,” she said. “Of course, loss of life,
which you can’t put a dollar amount on, is certainly worth
that as well.” US scientists said in their spring weather
outlook that 13 million people are at risk of major
inundation, with more than 200 river gauges this week
showing some level of flooding in the Mississippi River
basin, which drains the vast middle of the United States.
Major flooding continues in places from the Red River
in North Dakota to near the mouth of the Mississippi in
Louisiana, a map from the National Weather Service
shows.
“There are over 200 million people that are under some
elevated threat risk,” said Ed Clark, director of the
National Water Centre in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, a flood
forecasting hub. Much of the technology, such as the
National Water Model, didn’t exist until recently. Fueled
by supercomputers in Virginia and Florida, it came online
about three years ago and expanded streamflow data by
700-fold, assembling data from 5 million river miles (8
million kilometres) of rivers and streams nationwide,
including many smaller ones in remote areas. “Our models
simulate exactly what happens when the rain falls on the
Earth and whether it runs off or infiltrates,” Clark said.
“And so the current conditions, whether that be snowpack
or the soil moisture in the snowpack, well that’s something
we can measure and monitor and know.” Emergency
managers and dam safety officials can see simulations of
the consequences of flood waters washing away a levee
or crashing through a dam using technology developed
at the University of Mississippi — a web-based system
known as DSS-WISE.
There are over 200 million people that are under
some elevated threat risk,” said Ed Clark,
director of the National Water Centre in
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, a flood forecasting hub
The software went online in 2017 and quickly
provided simulations that informed the response to heavy
rains that damaged spillways at the nation’s tallest dam
in northern California. The program also helped forecast
the flooding after Hurricane Harvey in Texas and
Louisiana that year. Engineers monitoring levees along
the Mississippi River have been collecting and checking
data using a geographic information system produced by
Esri, said Nick Bidlack, levee safety program manager
for the Memphis district of the US Army Corps of
Engineers.
…………………..engineers are increasingly
flying drones to get their own aerial photography
and video of flooded areas they can’t otherwise
get to because of high water or rough terrain, said
Edward Dean, a Corps engineer. “We can reach
areas that are unreachable,” Dean said.
The company produces mapping tools such as an
interactive site showing the nation’s largest rivers and
their average monthly flow. On the Mississippi River,
flood inspectors use smartphones or tablets in the field to
input data into map-driven forms for water levels and the
locations of inoperable flood gates, seepages, sand boils
or levee slides, which are cracks or ditches in the slopes
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