Hydro-meteorological Disasters: Causes, Effects and Mitigation Measures with Special Reference to Early Warning with Data Driven Approaches of Forecasting

In this paper, an attempt is made to highlight the causes, effects and mitigation measures of hydro-meteorological disasters with special reference to data driven approaches of forecasting. Recognizing the fact that the frequency of occurrence of water related disasters as well as the consequent damages including human casualties are on the increase in recent years, mitigation measures have become a high priority issue in all vulnerable countries. Structural measures taken by developed countries cannot be applied to developing countries because of the high capital investment. Non- structural measures such as early warning systems are more appealing to developing countries. One of the most important components of an early warning system is a mathematical model that links the input variables to the corresponding output variable. Several approaches of model formulation are discussed and some examples of the more recent fuzzy logic approach to flood forecasting is presented.