[Assam] Digital Brahmaputra is IIT teachers’ dre "am (The Sentinel,22.09.2006)"

[Chan Mahanta]

I have a high degree of confidence with Dr. 
Chandan Mahanta of IIT-G( can anyone do otherwise 
with someone with a name like that :-)?). Even 
though I do not know the rest of his colleagues, 
I am sure they too are of similar caliber and 
dedicated to Assam's welfare. I wish them well.

Chandan Mahanta ( the other one that is :-))












At 3:05 AM +0100 9/22/06, Buljit Buragohain wrote:
>Digital Brahmaputra is IIT teachers’ dream
>By a Staff Reporter
>GUWAHATI, Sept 21: In a path-breaking exercise 
>in the country, five professors of Civil 
>Engineering Department, IIT, Guwahati have come 
>up with the project of developing a Hydrological 
>Information Infrastructure (HII) for the 
>Brahmaputra River System as a step towards their 
>larger aim of creating a Digital Brahmaputra. An 
>HII is the combination of hardware, software and 
>policies which provide a unified framework for 
>mapping the area from micro-watershed to basin 
>level, quantitative assessment of water and 
>quality in space and time through modelling and 
>local participation.
>But why is this idea, and how will it help the 
>common people? Up-to-date water hazards and 
>meteorological information are critical at all 
>levels of planning. As a timely, accurate and 
>cost-effective source of centralized 
>information, spatial and attribute database in 
>digital domain can play an important role in 
>development planning.
>The primary idea is to support decision making 
>for different purposes. The activities to be 
>undertaken will not remain confined within 
>technical matters like data, technologies, 
>standards and delivery mechanisms etc. 
>Institutional matters relating to developmental 
>responsibilities and policies will also be 
>there. The infrastructure will have a major 
>impact even in the day-to day livelihood of 
>people of the north-eastern region with a range 
>of direct and indirect benefits to individuals 
>like farmers, fishermen and tourism 
>professionals and others.
>Professors Nayanjyoti Pathak, Pranjan Goswami, 
>Chandan Mahanta, U Dutta and B Choudhuri from 
>the Civil Engineering Department have designed 
>this project which has been planned to be 
>initiated after ascertaining stakeholders’ needs 
>in an inception workshop.
>Due to the nature of the project, it would 
>require collaboration with a large number of 
>organizations and agencies such as the NEC, the 
>Brahmaputra Board, water resources departments 
>of the north-eastern states etc, both in terms 
>of data sharing and with respect to accruing the 
>benefits of the output of the project.
>Various aspects of life in this region are 
>linked with vast water resources. Paradoxically, 
>there is a complete lack of dependable knowledge 
>base for harnessing this resource in a 
>sustainable manner. So, the major objective of 
>the proposed project is to provide both spatial 
>and attribute data and information service on 
>key aspects (precipitation, flow, utilizable 
>volume, current and future use, irrigation 
>potential, environmental flow requirement and 
>livelihood options).
>The large-scale digital river system currently 
>provides database, real-time transmission and 
>processing of information and support for 
>scientific decision-making. The system is 
>divided into five sub-systems for the work of 
>taming the river including flood control 
>command, water resource coordination, soil and 
>water conservation supervision and control, 
>office automation and a river website.
>Among other things, if the project turns into 
>work, prediction and forecasting of mega-hazards 
>and disaster avoidance with overall resource 
>planning and development will be facilitated. 
>Reduction of environmental resource 
>vulnerability would also be possible. 
>Implementation of plans and projects among 
>agencies/institutions can be achieved since 
>these will be based upon a uniform database. It 
>will help develop sound spatial water quality 
>monitoring and mitigation strategies and actions 
>at local levels. Everything will become true if 
>the Prototype Brahmaputra becomes a Digital one.
>Besides secondary data sources, selected key 
>parameters, for which existing data is not 
>available or scarce, will be generated through 
>on-line field sensors and analysts in the 
>laboratory.
>It is also true that if the whole projects turns 
>to a reality, then this can be extended to cover 
>another main component of the 
>Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna system i,.e. the Barak 
>(called Meghna in Bangladesh) river in south. 
>This may lead finally to the creation of 
>digitised versions of all the major rivers of 
>the country for their epitomized management 
>towards maximum benefit to all stakeholders.
>
>
>
>
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