Research

Earth, Atmosphere & Environment Sciences

Title :

Implementation of Japanese early-warning criteria Soil Water Index SWI for debris flows and slope failures into territorial early warning systems in India for landslide disaster mitigation

Area of research :

Earth, Atmosphere & Environment Sciences

Focus area :

Geohazards and Disaster Risk Reduction

Principal Investigator :

Dr. Srikrishnan Siva Subramanian, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, Uttarakhand (247667)

Contact info :

Details

Executive Summary :

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is aiming to improve the predictive capacity of its Experimental Territorial Landslide Early Warning System (Te-LEWS) for rainfall-triggered landslides in India. The project aims to explore the applicability of the Soil-water Index (SWI) based Japanese early warning criteria to India within the framework of ISRO's Te-LEWS. The research will develop and improve SWI landslide early warning thresholds for Uttarakhand, India, and update it regionwide for operation during extreme rainfall 5 km 5 km grids and 3 km 3 km grids. Extreme precipitation-induced sediment disasters, such as slope failures, debris slides, and debris flows, occur increasingly in Japan and India. Climate science models project an increase in extreme rainfall events over Japan and a substantial increase in monsoon precipitation over the Himalayas in India, which are affected by catastrophic landslides every year. The project aims to introduce the successful applicability of the Japanese Early Warning Criteria to India, specifically Uttarakhand, by adopting novel numerical modeling approaches to address the challenges of limited historical records of landslides. The research will also explore the possibility of deriving early-warning thresholds for data-scarce regions.

Co-PI:

Dr. Piyush Srivastava, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, Uttarakhand (247667), Dr. Sumit Sen, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, Uttarakhand (247667)

Total Budget (INR):

8,22,000

Organizations involved