Publication: Flood Risk Assessment and Forecasting for the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna River Basins
Loading...
Published
2017-10-01
ISSN
Date
2017-10-25
Editor(s)
Abstract
The Ganges Basin in South Asia is home to some of the world's poorest and most vulnerable communities. Impacted by catastrophic annual floods, the region is recognized as highly disaster prone, causing widespread human suffering and economic losses. In recognition of these challenges, many groups are actively and cooperatively engaged in reducing South Asia's vulnerability to flooding. As a contribution to these efforts, the World Bank recently commissioned specialist teams to assess and map flood risk across the Ganges River basin and to design and evaluate flood forecasting tools for the greater Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna basin. Flood Risk Assessment and Forecasting for the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna River Basins summarizes the technical findings, includes highlights of the work, and links to the full technical reports and new interactive online resources. The report provides, for the first time, a numbers-based view of the impacts of floods of different severities across the Ganges basin, helping identify priority areas for addressing flood risks (for example, relocating levees, improving flood warning systems, and boosting overall economic resilience). This report on the flood forecasting system provides probability-based flood forecasts for more than 85 Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna basin locations along with near-real-time data maps of rainfall (predicted and actual) and river levels.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Priya, Satya; Young, William; Hopson, Thomas; Avasthi, Ankit. 2017. Flood Risk Assessment and Forecasting for the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna River Basins. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/28574 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Flood Risk Assessment for the Ganges Basin in South Asia(World Bank, Noida, India, 2016-05)The chapter wise synopsis of the report is as follows: chapter one: (present chapter) provides the reader with an overview of the project, its scope, and its objectives. It also provides the reader with an understanding of key concepts related to the project. Chapter two: describes exposure data collection and management, including the following: the data sources and the methodology for exposure data management; and exposure data development for demographic data, general building stocks, essential facilities, and transportation systems and discusses their valuation. Chapter three: provides details of the Flood Hazard Assessment, including the following: provides details on data availability required for flood assessment; provides initial results of the hydraulic model, development, calibration, and validation; and flood hazard mapping for the probabilistic events of 2, 5, 10, 25, 50, and 100-years. Chapter four: provides details of the risk assessment methodology. This includes: methodology for vulnerability functions (depth-damage function) development for various exposure classes viz. buildings, infrastructure, and agriculture etc; and methodology for loss calculation for various types of exposures. Chapter five: provides details on the findings of the risk assessment task at basin-level. Chapter six: provides details on the findings of the risk assessment task at each of the 18 sub-basins of the Ganges Basin. Chapter seven: provides the conclusions and recommendations based on the findings of the risk assessment study as a part of this assignment along with the areas to improve the study. In addition to the main report, RMSI is also providing the Ganges Basin Risk Atlas, a compendium of the main risk maps at the basin and sub-basin levels.Publication Water and Climate Adaptation Plan for the Sava River Basin(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-08)This report presents the water and climate adaptation plan (WATCAP) developed for the Sava river basin (SRB) as result of a study undertaken by the World Bank. The WATCAP is intended to help to bridge the gap between the climate change predictions for the SRB and the decision makers in current and planned water management investment projects that will be affected by changing climate trends. The purpose of the report is to: (i) assist stakeholders and decision makers in assessing and planning for the risks generated by climate change impacts on water resources; (ii) provide a basis for future plans and studies of adaptation to climate change impacts in the SRB; and (iii) stimulate cooperation and debate across the basin toward additional and more detailed studies on climate change impacts at the regional and basin scale. The SRB is projected to experience small increases in water use by the public water supply, industry, energy, and agricultural and irrigation sectors. However, it is widely expected that new hydropower plants (HPPs) will be constructed in the near future, making energy (primarily through hydropower) the most important water use in the SRB.Publication Flood Risk Management at River Basin Scale(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-06-01)This UFCOP Knowledge Note outlines key principles for flood risk management in river basins, that can be adapted for use by policymakers and project managers alike. It draws on a wide range of best practice case studies globally, where flood risk at the river basin scale has been well managed.Publication Water and Climate Adaptation Plan for the Sava River Basin(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-08)This report presents the water and climate adaptation plan (WATCAP) developed for the Sava river basin (SRB) as result of a study undertaken by the World Bank. The WATCAP is intended to help to bridge the gap between the climate change predictions for the SRB and the decision makers in current and planned water management investment projects that will be affected by changing climate trends. The purpose of the report is to: (i) assist stakeholders and decision makers in assessing and planning for the risks generated by climate change impacts on water resources; (ii) provide a basis for future plans and studies of adaptation to climate change impacts in the SRB; and (iii) stimulate cooperation and debate across the basin toward additional and more detailed studies on climate change impacts at the regional and basin scale. The SRB is projected to experience small increases in water use by the public water supply, industry, energy, and agricultural and irrigation sectors. However, it is widely expected that new hydropower plants (HPPs) will be constructed in the near future, making energy (primarily through hydropower) the most important water use in the SRB.Publication Ganges Strategic Basin Assessment(Washington, DC, 2014)The objective of the Ganges Strategic Basin Assessment (Ganges SBA) is to build knowledge and promote an open, evidence-based dialogue on the shared opportunities and risks of cooperative management in the basin. It is hoped that this will lead to greater cooperation in the management of this shared river system, beginning with a shift from information secrecy to information sharing. The key feature of this regional research is the development of a set of nested hydrological and economic basin models, along with targeted analyses on social vulnerability and climate change. The mosaic of information produced using these tools and approaches can be used to examine alternative scenarios across a range of possible Ganges futures.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Recipe for a Livable Planet(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-09-20)The global agrifood system has been largely overlooked in the fight against climate change. Yet, greenhouse gas emissions from the agrifood system are so big that they alone could cause the world to miss the goal of keeping global average temperatures from rising above 1.5 centigrade compared to preindustrial levels. Greenhouse gas emissions from agrifood must be cut to net zero by 2050 to achieve this goal. Recipe for a Livable Planet: Achieving Net Zero Emissions in the Agrifood System offers the first comprehensive global strategic framework to mitigate the agrifood system’s contributions to climate change, detailing affordable and readily available measures that can cut nearly a third of the world’s planet heating emissions while ensuring global food security. These actions, which are urgently needed, offer three additional benefits: improving food supply reliability, strengthening the global food system’s resilience to climate change, and safeguarding vulnerable populations. This practical guide outlines global actions and specific steps that countries at all income levels can take starting now, focusing on six key areas: investments, incentives, information, innovation, institutions, and inclusion. Calling for collaboration among governments, businesses, citizens, and international organizations, it maps a pathway to making agrifood a significant contributor to addressing climate change and healing the planet.Publication World Development Report 2007(World Bank, 2006)The theme of The World Development Report 2007 is youth - young people between the ages of 12 to 24. As this population group seeks identity and independence, they make decisions that affect not only their own well-being, but that of others, and they do this in a rapidly changing demographic and socio-economic environment. Supporting young people's transition to adulthood poses important opportunities and risky challenges for development policy. Are education systems preparing young people to cope with the demands of changing economies? What kind of support do they get as they enter the labor market? Can they move freely to where the jobs are? What can be done to help them avoid serious consequences of risky behavior, such as death from HIV-AIDS and drug abuse? Can their creative energy be directed productively to support development thinking? The report will focus on crucial capabilities and transitions in a young person's life: learning for life and work, staying healthy, working, forming families, and exercising citizenship. For each, there are opportunities and risks; for all, policies and institutions matter.Publication El Salvador - Public Expenditure Review : Enhancing the Efficiency and Targeting of Expenditures, Volume 2. Chapters and Statistical Tables(Washington, DC, 2010-11)This Public Expenditure Review (PER), produced jointly by the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), is an in-depth economic and sector report on El Salvador. The study builds on the analysis and recommendations of the PER delivered in 2004 that concluded that El Salvador faced the dual challenge of addressing deteriorating fiscal trends while financing key investments required to accelerate growth and meet pressing social needs. This report is intended to provide the government with practical and useful near-and medium-term recommendations that will support the country's efforts to ensure sustainable fiscal balances and establish effective and transparent mechanisms to allocate public resources to promote broad-based economic growth, improve social indicators, and reduce poverty. Hence, the government knows that El Salvador is faced with two fiscal challenges that will have great influence on the economic performance over the coming years. The first is the need to improve the fiscal balance, by strengthening revenue and reducing expenditure, to ensure medium-term sustainability. The second is the need to finance priority investments required to accelerate growth, reduce unemployment, and cover basic social needs. Meeting both challenges simultaneously will require great skill, given the still fragmented political environment and the difficulties in creating a consensus on future policies. The country needs to strengthen its fiscal stance because not doing so jeopardizes the medium-term macroeconomic framework, and exposes the country to greater vulnerability in the face of external shocks and contingent liabilities.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Global Economic Prospects, January 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-16)Global growth is expected to hold steady at 2.7 percent in 2025-26. However, the global economy appears to be settling at a low growth rate that will be insufficient to foster sustained economic development—with the possibility of further headwinds from heightened policy uncertainty and adverse trade policy shifts, geopolitical tensions, persistent inflation, and climate-related natural disasters. Against this backdrop, emerging market and developing economies are set to enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century with per capita incomes on a trajectory that implies substantially slower catch-up toward advanced-economy living standards than they previously experienced. Without course corrections, most low-income countries are unlikely to graduate to middle-income status by the middle of the century. Policy action at both global and national levels is needed to foster a more favorable external environment, enhance macroeconomic stability, reduce structural constraints, address the effects of climate change, and thus accelerate long-term growth and development.