Our world is currently witnessing a vital surge in the frequency and intensity of climate change caused by natural disasters like hurricanes, wildfires, floods and heatwaves.

Floods in India have been a regular occurrence since ancient times. However, factors like climate change and frequent and uncontrolled urbanisation, apart from a population explosion, have intensified the situation.

Need for technology to manage floods

For the past few years, various instances where in which floods have ravaged crucial cities like Mumbai and Chennai, like many smaller cities and towns. In times of such crisis, there is a need to develop as well as deploy technology that can predict floods. Over the years, a significant amount of effort has been made to enhance the technology that can assist the scientific community and policymakers in predicting floods worldwide.

However, not all of them are affordable or useful in specific circumstances. One of the significant requirements for developing countries is for the technology to be affordable, as their national income does not allow them to overspend. India is one such country that needs to resort to specific technological and mathematical models in predicting floods.

AI in managing floods in India

Today, there exists several technologies that can help predict as well as manage floods in India. Since some of the major metropolitan cities in the country have been regularly experiencing floods over the past few decades, this not only puts property at risk but also increases the probability of loss of life due to floods. Today, cutting-edge technologies for predicting floods have replaced traditional ones.

One such technology is Artificial Intelligence. This does not mean that traditional methods for predicting and preventing floods have become outdated. It means that newer technology can help strengthen existing ones and save many lives. The information that can be captured by Artificial Intelligence can benefit the community in leveraging and building community resources.

Introducing Rapid Action for Humanitarian Assistance in Tragedies (RAHAT)

In this scenario, the Cachar district administration in Assam launched an Artificial Intelligence-based application to combat the flood situation by building robust connectivity among the people, security forces, and government during flood emergencies. The app Rapid Action for Humanitarian Assistance in Tragedies (RAHAT) will play a crucial role in sharing critical information for dissemination of early warning, evacuation, search and rescue and supply of essential items, specifically in remote areas, the officials said.

As per the reports of state disaster management, 324,938 people were affected by floods in 898 villages across 18 districts in the previous year. Cachar was one of the most flood-affected districts in Assam. Over 85% of the total population was affected during the floods in 2022, and the district recorded around 45 deaths, which marked the highest number in the state, according to the district disaster management authority (DDMA).

Significance of RAHAT

According to the officials, RAHAT is expected to be a game changer in integrating and leveraging ICT in disaster risk prevention, mitigation, response and recovery in Cachar district. Rohan Kumar Jha, the district commissioner of Cachar, said, “This app would perform significant functionalities even in data shadow areas in sharing critical information for dissemination of early warning, evacuation, search and rescue, supply of essential items including medical aids, relief camp/centre management, damage and loss assessment, prepositioning of resources etc.”

Moreover, he said, the application will allow the line departments to select the type of disaster event and provide an option to include information on the context of damage. As per the officials, besides the admin login, this interface offers login for the relief centre in charge to enter data for Gratuitous Relief (GR) and related matters for camp/centre management (digitised data for GR distribution and sanctioning Rehabilitation Grant in favour of concerned beneficiary etc), nodal response agencies/departments, CQRT volunteers with appropriate security measures to prevent data.

District project officer of DDMA, Cachar, Shamin Ahmed Choudhury, said that this is the first of its kind application in Assam, and they have shared the idea with the state government.

• Photo by Dibakar Roy on Unsplash