CWC Flood Forecast - India

About

 * Central Water Commission (CWC) is the national organization which is carrying out the flood forecasting activity on the major rivers of India since 1958.
 * Flood forecasting information is available on their Flood Forecasting System(?)(FFS).
 * Track the discussion about this project on this thread.

Source(s): CWC Flood Forecast

Live Site

 * Check the project live online on http://india.ictd.asia/floods (soon)

Source(s): CWC Flood Forecast

Objectives

 * Save the details of each Forecasting Site. (Done. Collecting data since September 1 2010)
 * Archive daily updates of each Flood Forecasting Site (FFS).
 * Archive daily Flood Alerts issued by CWC.
 * Allow interested parties to access the data using API/Feeds/Email.
 * Data visualisation on a Map.
 * Convert the daily Flood Alerts into CAP format.

Source(s): CWC Flood Forecast

List of Tasks (Pending/Completed)

 * Done Current code retrieves data from the source site from September 1, 2010. (Crawl schedule: 10 AM, 12 PM, 4 PM, 7 PM)
 * Done Need to test it and setup cron.
 * Ongoing Testing the code logic for possible flaws.
 * Publish data online with Site Wise/Date Wise search.
 * Sending alerts by email to subscribers.
 * Convert Information to Action: Prepare a list of field based agencies working on Flood Prone areas who could use this information.
 * API
 * Find GeoLocation information for each FFS ID.
 * Publishing Feeds on Twitter/Identica/FB
 * User Interface with Feeds on a map?
 * Prepare a CAP template for daily flood alerts.

Source(s): CWC Flood Forecast

Skills required to help
Currently the code is written in Python 2.4, hosted on CentOS 5, with PostgreSQL 8.1.21, SQLAlchemy.
 * HTML/CSS/JS
 * OpenLayers
 * Graphics Designing
 * Python
 * BeautifulSoup
 * XML/RSS

Source(s): CWC Flood Forecast

For Developers

 * Get source code from Launchpad.
 * File Bugs here..

Source(s): CWC Flood Forecast

Understanding Data Source

 * Check list of current flood forecasts here. Click on the site name to be taken to the entry having data.
 * Check an individual entry here.
 * Current range of Id (in the URL http://www.india-water.com/ffs/static_info.asp?Id=145 ) is 1-179.
 * The HTML output contains 3 tables.
 * Contains:
 * Location Data about the Site.
 * Static/Historical Water Level information.
 * Present Water Level.
 * Present Rainfall data.

Source(s): CWC Flood Forecast

Flood Alert
Steps to see the Daily Flood Alerts issued by CWC
 * Go to this site - http://www.india-water.com/ffs/Reports/RptCurrent.asp
 * Click on any of the one's that are listed to be directed to the site's status page.
 * Alerts issued in two sections based on the type of FFS. Level/Inflow Forecasting Site.
 * Types of Flood Alerts on the status page:
 * No Flood Alerts(or no PWL data available) - [[File:No_Flood_Alert_Issued.png]]
 * Level Forecasting Site:
 * Single Forecast: [[File:Flood_Alert_Issued_Daily.png]]
 * Inflow Forecasting Site:
 * Single Forecast: [[File:Flood_Alert_Issued_Daily_Inflow_I.png]]
 * Double Forecast: [[File:Flood_Alert_Issued_Daily_Inflow_II.png]]
 * Cumecs ->
 * Alert contains the following: (Also see structure of Table *site_forecasts* below)
 * Flood Forecast Number
 * Next day's Date/Time when the values are expected to reach the levels.
 * Value - Expected level of water tomorrow.
 * Trend - of the water level.
 * Forecast Legend - Low/High/Medium Level of Flood alert issued.
 * Page updated - when the information on this page was updated.
 * Proposed CAP Message Template for the alert
 * Alert should have site info as well? Like name

Source(s): CWC Flood Forecast

Proposed Design

 * Suggested Markers/Categories: (i.e. information representation using “Keywords” concept or “tags”
 * Flood Alert Type: “Moderate/Low/High”
 * Water Level: “Steady/Rising/Falling”
 * Forecasting Site Type: Level/Inflow
 * Date: “Today/Yesterday/Everything before yesterday”
 * Water Level (Numeric Comparison) - Current: “Over Warning Level/Below WL/Over Danger Level/Below DL”
 * Each Flood Forecasting Site is a “Location” so a “Site” icon for them. Its a site which has measuring equipment manned by a person. So an office’s icon?
 * UI/Mockups
 * Draft I by kamalx -
 * I like it. Simple and nice :) I'd just remove ICTD ASIA INDIA chapter from the heading and have it in the footer somewhere. It should have the project name like "Flood Alert Portal - India" or India Flood Alert Portal instead. --Ajuonline 16:17, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Source(s): CWC Flood Forecast

Proposed Data Model

 * Table: site_profile - Structure: [[File:site_profile.png]]
 * Table: site_forecasts - Structure: [[File:site_forecasts.png]]
 * Table: site_updates - Structure: [[File:site_updates.png]]

Source(s): CWC Flood Forecast

API
Note: The API will provide a dictionary of id->location pairs somewhere. Which the developer will fetch each time. We'll use a Last-Modified header so we won't be wasting bandwidth.

Source(s): CWC Flood Forecast

Contributors

 * Ravi Chandra Padmala (neenaoffline) - User:Neena
 * Ajay Kumar (ajuonline) - User:Ajuonline
 * Kamal Morjal (kamalx) - User:Kamalx

Source(s): CWC Flood Forecast

Acknowledgements

 * Central Water Commission, India
 * Grameen Development Services, India

Source(s): CWC Flood Forecast