End-to-end early warning system for Ukai and local floods in Surat City

This document discusses a project to set up an End-to-End Early Warning System to reduce the intensity of floods and resultant flood damage to Surat, India, especially within the Tapi river catchment. This paper is intended for stakeholders from national to state to district to city institutions, who are responsible for flood information generation, dissemination, preparedness, warning and management ranging. The project aims to reduce the intensity of floods and resultant flood damage to Surat through improved reservoir operation to minimize peak floods and systems to enable institutions and society to handle flood emergencies.

This paper outlines several key achievements of the project:

• Surat climate change trust has been established with members from national, state and city institutions;
• Reservoir inflow and outflow prediction models have been developed;
• Ten automatic weather stations and two water level measurement units have been installed across the city to provide detailed weather, tide and flow information;
• City level spatial data has been created (in GIS) for flood management; and
• Flood preparedness, response and mitigation plans are under development.