FLOMON

Bangladesh is a riverine nation situated in the middle of the Ganges delta.  Mostly flat, this is a rich alluvial land periodically enriched by the alluvial deposits from 2 major river systems of South Asia, the Padma (Ganges) and the Jamuna (Brahmaputra). The nation's abundant water supplies are used to produce hydroelectric power and for irrigating farmlands during the dry season.

During the last decade several initiatives have led to the establishment of a geographical knowledge centre (EGIS) in Dhaka. This centre supports the development of geographical solutions for issues of national priority related to flooding, fisheries, agriculture and other land and marine applications.

The recent development of a PC-based ERS Ground Receiving Station (RAPIDS) on the remote sensing market has led to the FLOMON Project "Flood Monitoring Service Demonstration Operation in Bangladesh" . RAPIDS can yield large amounts of image data at relatively low cost, in near real-time and directly at the relevant location. In this way, SAR data can be more easily interpreted for assessing flood damage and taking direct action in times of flood hazards.

The FLOMON service was focused on timely interpretation of ERS images with easy-to-use PC based software in an operational flood monitoring environment under ERDAS and Arc-View shell.

The project had two principal objectives:

1. Demonstration/operation of a 'low cost', up-to-date and easy-to-handle flood monitoring service in the floodplains of Bangladesh;
2. Consolidation of the flood monitoring service with the EGIS centre in Bangladesh as end-user and (set up of archive for) additional applications.