Ba Che district spends VND 9.5 billion to invest in rain and flood warning technology

Ba Che district (Quang Ninh province) is located in the Binh Lieu - Dong Trieu arc with overlapping mountain ranges running in the Northeast - Southwest direction, steep terrain, and many rivers and streams forming valleys.

In particular, Ba Che River is influenced by the tides at its mouth, so people often suffer from unusual floods and rains. According to Ba Che District People's Committee, the level of damage caused by floods has been increasing in recent years. The total estimated damage from 2008 - 2018 was about VND 246 billion. In particular, the record damage caused by the flood on September 26, 2008, was about VND 105 billion. In addition to material damage, floods also affect people's spiritual lives.

Faced with that situation, the People's Committee of Ba Che district has built a flood warning and forecasting system, including rain and flood measuring stations and easy-to-operate information software with quick calculation time, and does not require much specialized knowledge. The user's industry does not have to rent or buy flood forecasting and warning software at a high cost but still ensures high accuracy.

The system is built by combining hydrological, hydraulic, and artificial intelligence models. This approach combines complex calculations of hydrological and hydraulic models with outstanding advances in artificial intelligence technology to serve flood forecasting.

In particular, the system can predict floods 16 days in advance and provide scenarios to respond to natural disasters based on inference models based on artificial intelligence. The information is displayed at the District or Provincial Operations Center and is immediately transmitted to people via the message system. This is a breakthrough in solutions to forecasting and preventing floods and storms and responding to current natural disasters.

In addition, since the beginning of the year, Ba Che District People's Committee has planned to organize and propagate training to relevant units and people in the area. Applying technology in natural disaster prevention and control helps improve people's ability to respond to increasingly severe natural disasters.

Mr. Khieu Anh Tu, Vice Chairman of Ba Che District People's Committee, said that this system will automatically collect monitoring information on the Ba Che river basin and flood hot spots and continuously transmit and update data, update to the server of the Command Center for Natural Disaster Prevention and Search and Rescue located at the district People's Committee headquarters. From there, create a database system on rain and flood maps of Ba Che district in the online environment.

To date, the district has built and installed an equipment system of 7 rain measuring stations and five water level measuring stations in 8 communes and towns; 3 stations at irrigation lakes in the area, each with surveillance cameras. These are critical points where floods often occur in the Ba Che River basin.

When the water level exceeds the forecast threshold, the system will issue a warning and immediately send it to officials and people. This is a groundbreaking new feature in solutions for predicting and preventing floods and storms and responding to current natural disasters.

With VND 9.5 billion invested in applying modern technology to warn natural disasters, it has significantly reduced damage caused by nature.

"Having the first storm and flood warning system with modern technology in the province is truly a significant step forward in thinking and efforts to prevent and control natural disasters, storms, and floods of the party committee, local authorities, and attention of the province. From then on, do a good job of "4 on the spot, 3 ready" in natural disaster prevention and control, search and rescue," Mr. Khieu Anh Tu emphasized.

Previously, on the afternoon of October 3, the Vietnam Meteorological Hydrological Administration organized a celebration of the 78th anniversary of the traditional day of Vietnam's hydrometeorology industry with the theme: "Vietnam's hydrometeorology with 78 years of continuous innovation and modernity in technology to serve the community".

On this occasion, the Vietnam Meteorological Hydrological Administration has launched an early warning system for thunderstorms, lightning, and floods. This is one of the systems that integrate many types of data from the monitoring system and is entirely automatic. The system was built to provide early information to support forecasting and warning of thunderstorms, cyclones, lightning, and heavy rain and serving warnings of dangerous hydrometeorological phenomena that impact the community.

From the thunderstorm, lightning, and flood warning support system, all developments in the weather situation in all areas are continuously monitored through earth satellite images survey, domestic weather radar, rain gauge network, and nationwide lightning location network.