On June 18, 2018, the Central Water Commission under the Union Water Resources Ministry signed an agreement with Google to share expertise on flood forecasting. The agreement will give CWC access to the latest technologies of Google like artificial intelligence and geo-spatial mapping. This type of technology will greatly improve the CWC’s information system on flood prediction so that more accurate and actionable flood warnings can be issued in advance.
Currently, the CWC gives flood warnings on the basis of rising water levels in reservoirs. The Indian Meteorological Department provides inputs to the CWC on the possibility of heavy rainfall and whether it could result in flood. Google would provide visualisation. Through Google maps, the building up of water levels will be seen. Google would make use of high resolution digital elevation model and vast computational resources to generate flood inundation maps while using the level forecast input provided by CWC.
With this collaboration in place, there will be considerable reduction in the warning time of floods. The forecasting for 2018 would be done on a trial basis and it would be fully functional in the days to come.