The Geological Survey of India (GSI) along with the West Bengal government has deployed a people-centric landslide early warning system (L-EWS) for the first time in the country at Kurseong in Darjeeling district, a GSI official said.
The experimental L-EWS, wherein the community plays an important role, was deployed at Giddapahar village in Kurseong on Friday, he said.
"Absolute prediction of the occurrences of landslides, both in space and time, often does not happen because inter-related key elements like risk knowledge, monitoring, analysis, warning generation, dissemination and communication of warning and preparedness for timely response do not work in sync," he said on Monday.
"The difficulties coupled with the variability in the intensity of trigger makes its forecasting difficult for the purpose of alerting community at risk. Therefore, the need of putting community based landslide warning system has been deeply felt," he said.
Elaborating about the system, he said that it was ideal for warning landslides as their spatio-temporal forecasting is extremely difficult particularly from a remote area.
Stating that Giddapahar is one of the most landslide prone areas in Darjeeling district, he said, "the village is located over the crown of an active rock slide which reactivated several times in the two decades. The houses and grounds have developed cracks and show signs of active mass movement."
"The area has been studied using modern InSAR technology by putting five corner reflectors, rainfall threshold analysis for landslide initiation within the Kurseong area and finally the results culminated into development of a people-centric (L-EWS)," he said.
In 2016, the Landslide Studies Division of Geohazards Research and Management (GHRM) Centre, GSI, Kolkata has studied this landslide zone with an aim to develop an early warning system.
The GSI is working on different aspects of landslides, but with villages located in remote areas and examples of landslide disasters being happening at night (Limbudhura village landslide in Mirik, Malin landslide located slightly away from main centre, Malpa landslide located in remote high Himalayan terrain), warning people about the impending danger has always been a challenge, he said.
Shallow and fast moving rainfall-induced landslides had claimed several lives every year. Making L-EWS effective in such cases following "top-down" approach is not always feasible, therefore GSI mooted the concept of "bottom-up" approach to early warning, with the active participation of local communities, he said.
Before deployment of the system, a few rounds of community landslide awareness programme, including mock-drills, were conducted.
In fact, a rain-gauge has been installed to monitor rainfall and the people have been taught to analyse the rainfall threshold for landslide initiation and disseminate warning through WhatsApp group and using whistle to alert local people, he said.
A billboard showing all details of landslide warning has been erected in two places one at Giddapahar and another at Paglajhora to spread awareness among the people.
"An effective utilisation of the system will ensure reduction in the loss of life due to landslide. The community can take decision about the impending danger after analysing the ground situation at site and thus can manage the warning more efficiently at any time of the day," he said.
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