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      India is Developing Landslide Early Warning System | How Does it Work | Details Inside

      Organisations like the National Disaster & Relief Force (NDRF) will soon be equip with information about imminent landslides as an early warning system begins to take shape. GSI has begun experimental operation of two such systems in West Bengal’s Darjeeling and Tamil Nadu’s Nilgiri districts.

      Scientists at the Geological Survey of India (GSI) are hopeful of activating the landslide early warning system in some parts of India as soon as 2025.

      The newly develop system will work on the lines of cyclone warning systems and attempt to forecast the possibility of landslides in a particular region, providing crucial information to authorities to initiate preparedness activities.

      What is the Early Warning System for Predicting Landslides?

      The tool is being develop by the Geological Survey of India and will forecast slope specific and site-specific landslide possibilities once operational.

      The decision to raise the new facility came out of the Landslip European Consortium which has been researching slope movements since 2017.

      Research has been underway in Darjeeling and Nilgiri where the teams were able to develop a prototype in 2020 and began providing forecasts to local administrations.

      How does the Early Warning System Work?

      System uses data generated from previous landslides and rainfall in the region to predict the possibility of slope movement.

      According to officials from the GSI over 80% of landslides in India are trigger by rains and researchers will create rainfall threshold data. 

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      The threshold data will indicate the amount of rainfall that might trigger a landslide.

      The GSI is working with IMD, ISRO and other organisations to monitor rainfall forecasts in various regions and compare it with threshold data to predict landslides in the area.

      The threshold data is different for different places and therefore requires at least five years of observations to predict slope movements.

      What are the Challenges to Develop Early Warning System?

      The GSI is currently working in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Uttarakhand, and Sikkim on developing the first such systems.

      While it has starts experimental systems in Bengal and Tamil Nadu, work in other states is yet to commence due to delay in gathering the threshold numbers.

      The climate change has made the need for an early warning system for landslides more critical since there is an increasing number of such incidents in the country. 

      A recent landslide in the Kinnaur of Himachal Pradesh had claimed over 15 lives after a rapid slope movement was trigger by high-intensity rainfall over a short period of time.

      Similar early warning system for landslides are currently operational in 26 countries of the world including the US, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Italy and the United Kingdom.

      THANK YOU FOR READING.

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