Monsoon Asia suffers from flood disasters every year. Flood forecasting and warnings are key measures implemented to reduce casualties and damage caused by floods. However, the implementation of flood forecasting and warning systems has not really progressed in developing countries despite the availability of recommendations in documents such as the Hyogo Framework for Action (2005-2015). Therefore, the International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management (ICHARM) under the auspices of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has been promoting the application of the Integrated Flood Analysis System (IFAS) as the basis for a flood forecasting system for poorly-gauged rivers in developing countries through the Global Earth Observation System of Systems-Asian Water Cycle Initiative (GEOSS-AWCI) and other international frameworks. One of the key technologies of IFAS is to utilise satellite-based rainfall data for flood runoff analyses in poorly gauged rivers. IFAS implemented a self-correction system for satellite-based data, without any ground-based in-situ rain gauge data, to modify under-estimated satellite-based rainfall data in poorly gauged river basins. The verification studies revealed the high potential of IFAS, coupled with satellitebased rainfall data with a self-correction algorithm, to identify extreme flood events. Further areas to improve IFAS-based flood runoff analyses and forecasting are also discussed.
Peer-reviewed publication