Hydro Modelling Control Room (HMCR) – State Emergency Operation Centre

The Hydro Modelling Control Room (HMCR) is proposed to be established in Commissionerate of Revenue Administration’s Tamil Nadu Disaster Risk Reduction Agency (TNDRRA). The HMCR acts as a central nerve centre for RTFF and SDSS. Receives forecast from NWP models on rainfall, real time data from field equipment like ARG, AWS, AWLR and gate sensors. The HMCR stores the data in Relational Database Management Systems. Operates the hydro models for water level forecasts at river and streets and developing SOPs for Lake Operation Guidance Systems. The flood alerts from the Hydro Modelling Control Room will directly reach the general public without any lag in time. The general public can respond to the emergency flood alerts in time and save themselves. The Integrated Control Command Centre (ICCC) at Ripon Building of GCC, receives feed on flood alerts from HMCR. The HMCR functions as an Integrated Command Control Room from where the Disaster Management Authorities can issue flood alerts and directions to the District Administrators in time to avert flood damages.

Nearline Disaster Recovery Centre (NDRC)

It is proposed to establish the Nearline Disaster Recovery Centre (NDRC) in the existing Flood Control Room in the Office of the Chief Engineer (Operation & Maintenance), WRD, PWD, Chepauk, Chennai - 5. NDRC at WRD acts as one of the nodal centres for RTFF and SDSS. It also facilitates to be a backup centre for hydro modelling servers and store all the data from the HMCR. When the HMCR is down, the data from RTDAS will switch over to database server in the cloud to NDRC.

Flood Monitoring Centre (FMC)

FMCs provides flood alerts on water level in major waterbodies, waterways and streets. Collects feedback from local inputs and upgrades the system. Uploading details of gate openings and water level data of minor tanks manually into the system. The four nodal points of FMC are established in District Collectorate of Kancheepuram, Thiruvallur, Chengalpattu and Ranipet.

The RTFF & SDSS Operation

• The equipment and servers with the calibrated model are set-up in the HMFMCR.
• During the rains, the HMFMCR receives the following data in real-time
  • The forecast rainfall in the ensuing 3 days, 2 days, 1 day, 12 hrs, 6 hrs from the Numerical Weather Prediction Models (NWP)
  • The actual rainfall from the ARG is received at the HMFMCR from the field.
  • The weather parameters from the AWS.
  • The prevailing water levels / storage in the lakes / tanks are received at the HMFMCR from the AWLRs at field.
  • The inflow into the lakes / tanks from the AWLRs in the supply channels.
  • The gate opening positions of the lakes / tanks are received from the Gate Sensors of the lakes / tanks.
• The Modelling Servers simulate the rainfall-runoff in the terrain, Storm Water Drains (SWD) and Rivers.
• The consequent flood inundation extent and depth over the streets, wards, zones of the GCC and ULBs are simulated.
• The WRD officials give optimised manner of Lake Operation as an input scenario and run the models.
• The net potential Flood Inundation and Hazards are disseminated to the flood managers and the general public over Web, TV, email and mobile platforms.
• The Revenue authorities take flood mitigation measures like evacuating the people in advance from potential flood inundation areas, as disseminated from the system.
• People can give useful feedback to HMFMCR for fine-tuning the system, like actual depth of floods in their localities.
• The flood damages are minimised, using the RTFF & SDSS.