The extent and severity of the unfortunate combination of events became apparent thereafter as reported by 400,000 displaced households and more than 1.6 million people affected.
Myanmar Water Partnership awares that Flood Forecasting and Modeling approaches are one of the essential requirements to be able to give early warnings to the people to evacuate before flooding. This awareness created a training of Integrated Flood Management for 10 days on 25th July – 4th August in Bago ITC. It was jointly organized between Delft University of Technology, Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RvO) and Irrigation and Water Utilisation Management Department. Experts from Delft University gave lectures to the 20 trainees who participated in this training. The result from this training has been discussed in the National Seminar on Forecasting and Modeling Approaches for the Flood Caused by Climate Change on 5th August 2016 in Bago ITC.
This National Seminar organized by Myanmar Water Partnership (MmWP) together with Irrigation and Water Utilization Management Department (IWUMD), Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation (MoALI) of the Government of Union of Myanmar, with sponsorship support from Global Water Partnership - South East Asia (GWP-SEA). 75 participants from the 8 different government organizations, 4 participants from 2 Universities, 3 participants from 2 water related Companies, 2 consultants, 1 participant from the INGOs, 5 participants form the TU Delfts, 4 researchers, and total 94 persons attended the seminar.
9 speakers from Government and Organization shared about Flood forecasting & Modeling in Myanmar, Assessing future rainfall and Disaster Risk Assessment. Throughout the seminar, all participants learned together from each other and from the experts, discussed into the complex problems, shared the ideas about the problems and shared the input from the latest science, and how to take an active role in creating and maintaining the flood problems. The summary of the discussion will be used as an input to develop the flood early warning system.
Forecasting & Modeling Approaches for the Flood Caused
Following a period of unusual heavy monsoon precipitation that started in mid-July and continue into August 2015, Myanmar experienced the most severe flooding in decades. The rainfall is associated with the south-west Monsoon, which occurs each year, but the situation got worse after the land fall of Cyclone Komen in Bangladesh on 30th July 2015 which brought strong winds and additional heavy rain to (north) Myanmar.