How to track floods online

Torrential flash floods have ravaged 12 districts across the country since Wednesday. With water levels rising at an alarming rate, it is important to stay aware and cautious. Here are two ways users can track the flood:

Flood Forecasting & Warning Centre (http://www.ffwc.gov.bd/) by Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB)

This website has river based, division based, district based and Web-GIS maps. These maps show water level status in 4 categories: Normal level (when water is more than 50 cm below danger level), warning level (when water is within 50 cm below danger level), flood (when water is above danger level) and severe flood (when water is more than 1 m above danger level).

Screenshot taken from BWDB website.

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Google Flood Hub

Flood hub is an AI-based real-time global flood forecasting initiative by Google. Most of the flood forecasts rely on publicly available weather data from several sources like ECMWF forecasts, CPC rain gauge measurements, IMERG precipitation data, and satellite imagery from the European Space Agency's Copernicus Sentinel-1. Sentinel-1, a C-band SAR satellite, provides crucial imagery that our algorithms use to calculate flooded areas. However, in the case of Bangladesh, it uses local historical and real-time data from Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB).

Screenshot taken from Google Flood Hub.