NEW DELHI: Researchers at IIT Delhi have developed a mobile application, “IITD Aab Prahari”, to help citizens alert civic bodies to mitigate waterlogging issues. The app would enable real-time reporting of flooding incidents in and around residents’ location, said an IIT report.
“Rapid urbanisation and the escalating impacts of climate change have exacerbated the issue of urban flooding (waterlogging) that the NCT of Delhi faces during monsoon season.There is also a need to strengthen the city’s drainage system to address this pressing issue. Low-lying and densely populated areas in the NCT of Delhi suffer from severe waterlogging and infrastructure damage during heavy rainfall. Recognizing the need for a proactive, data-driven approach, the water security and sustainable development hub at IIT Delhi’s civil engineering department developed a mobile application called ‘IITD Aab Prahari’. The app has been designed to empower citizens to contribute to flood management,” said IIT in a release.
The app, available on the Google Play Store (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.iitdap.abbprahari&hl=en), allows users to send photos and measurements of flood depths at specific locations, which are automatically geotagged and sent to a central server.
Since its experimental launch in Aug 2022 and its official release in Sept 2022, the app has facilitated the collection of detailed, geotagged information on flood events, told the report.
“This crowdsourced data, which has been available on the central server since 2022, was instrumental in calibrating and validating IIT Delhi’s urban flood model in 2023. An urban flood early warning system for the Barapullah basin based on this flood model is already in place and can be accessed through https://jalsuraksha.iitd.ac.in/barapullah/index.html.” added the report.
“One of the Aab Prahari app‘s key strengths is its ability to engage citizens in flood management,” said Dr Dhanya CT, project PI and professor in department of civil engineering, IIT Delhi.
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