This is a rain gauge demonstration to be carried out with community involvement under a UNICEF-supported climate change mitigation project in Kerala.
A hundred rain gauges will be installed and operated by the communities this monsoon along the Periyar and Chalakudy river basins in Kerala. This will support Idukki, Ernakulam and Thrissur districts as well as some parts of Palakkad district.
Equinoct is driving this project; it is a Kochi based company that provides community-sourced modelling solutions. It happens to be the only start-up from India chosen for United Nations Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF) first Climate Tech Cohort Venture Fund Project. The recognition was given because Equinoct made successful use of the UNICEF’s Community-sourced Impact-based Flood Forecast and Early Warning System.
The first group of 10 gauges for installation along Puthenvelikkara, Chendamangalam, Poyya, Kuzhur, and Kunnukara panchayats have been handed over to students and members of the community who were also trained on how to install or read these gauges. Within four weeks all 100 gauges will become operational.
Presently, less than 200 government-managed rain gauges are maintained across Kerala state.
Better mitigation strategies
“The initiative would enable hyper-local climate warning system predicting accurate areas to be impacted thereby facilitating better disaster mitigation plans unlike the present district wise warning system which however focuses resources mobilization in times of emergencies. Since the input comes from affected communities, empowering them even share such critical data with government authorities, it is more like bottom-up approach. C.G Madhusoodhanan who is an Equinot CEO said “this will help avoid locating critical infrastructure such as hospitals; police stations; and Government offices at vulnerable locations.””
Unlike their counterparts that can take up only to 200mm, the gauges developed by Equinoct can measure rain of up to 350 mm thus usable for extreme rainfall. Also, artificial intelligence based groundwater, river and reservoir water-level prediction models and automatic rain gauges are also being developed.
Because the project is funded by UNICEF, it ensures that students actively participate in it.“ Rather than perceiving children as victims of climate change, the project bestows them with agency in becoming active participants in technological and scientific capacity building in tackling the challenges,” said Mr. Madhusoodhanan.
In line with IMD reading
The reading of manual rain gauges has been synchronized with India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) reading every day at 8.30 a.m. The data will then be uploaded on to Gather which is a mobile application designed for this purpose by Equinoct. However, readings from automatic gauges being developed will be updated on the app through a cloud-enabled system every fifteen minutes.
“At least 150 community members will be involved in monitoring rain gauge.” During our next level of scaling up this project, we intend to create a panchayat-level dashboard about possible weather impacts benefiting various stakeholders including farmers and businesses” C. Jayaraman who is the managing director of Equinot stated.
Over last four years Equinoct has been working alongside other like- minded organizations such as M.S.Swaminathan Research Foundation, Community Resource Centre Puthenvelikkara, ASAR and Resilient Destinations Foundation to address issues raised by climate change predominantly tidal flooding while co-creating solutions that involve community participation in coastal panchayats Ezhikkara,Kumbalangi,and Puthenvelikkara
