The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : India, Norway to work on tsunami warning system

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 30, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

India, Norway to work on tsunami warning system

Staff Reporter

IRS to provide technical inputs

CHENNAI: The Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, and the International Centre for Geo-hazards, Norway, have entered into an agreement to jointly work in the areas of risk assessment, prevention, mitigation and early warning of tsunamis and landslides in India.

The Institute of Remote Sensing (IRS), Anna University, will be the implementing agency for the 18-month project. IIT-Roorkee, the Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee, the National Institute of Ocean Technology, Chennai, and Survey of India, Dehradun, will be the other collaborators. The project will be implemented at a cost of Rs. 11 million, a press release said here.

While IRS will provide the technical inputs for the project, the International Centre for Geo-hazards will provide expert assistance and quality assurance. The project got off the ground earlier this month.

The objective of the project is to develop human resources and capacity building in the management of geo-hazards. Project components include macro-maps on 1:8,000 scale of five selected tsunami affected areas in Tamil Nadu using aerial photography and remote sensing, damage-assessment maps of the affected areas, topographical mapping of geo-morphological changes that had occurred after the tsunami, assessment of drinking water quality and soil salination, generating landslide hazard zonation maps and risk assessment maps of selected areas, sustainable development models and capacity building for institutions.

The project will borrow from Norway's considerable expertise in landslide management and will be co-ordinated by DST. IRS will also be responsible for large-scale mapping and interpretation of satellite imagery.

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