The recent flooding in the UK, Bangladesh, India, Korea, Indonesia, and now Africa has displaced quite a number of people, damaged a lot of public and private properties, destroyed agricultural crops and livestocks, and crippled the economy of countries.  But the news of these obvious destructions and the lost in human life are not the only effects that we should worry about from flooding of this magnitude. It is what happens after the water subsides that we really begin to feel that what happen…

The recent flooding in the UK left a lot of homes and properties damaged. But some residents are finding it difficult to move on with their lives especially with the issue of insurance renewals hanging over their heads. A particular news item brought this issue to my attention. Apparently, a couple in Worcester got their homes flooded when River Severn overflew. The couple’s living room and downstairs bathroom were overwhelmed by flood waters late last month. Now the couple was scheduled to rene…

The collaboration of inter agencies, in particular the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in the US, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC), have resulted into developing a new system of forecasting floods. By combining elements of weather forecasts, satellite observations, river gauges, and hydrologic modeling techniques, the system can predict when major rivers would start to swell providing relatively advanced warnings for people that w…