Improving flood response systems in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH: Floods in Cambodia in 2011 and 2013 killed more than 400 people, displaced tens of thousands and destroyed crops, livestock and homes.

This year, despite heavy rains, there have been fewer casualties and less damage, due in part to automated water gauges that can alert about 70,000 families to impending danger.

The gauges’ sensors track a river’s height and send data to a monitoring system. A mobile text message or call goes out when danger levels are hit, enabling people to secure their belongings and move to safety.

“Too many times, communities in high-risk areas learnt of the threat too late and lost everything,” said Paul Conrad, Cambodia director for Czech aid group People in Need (PIN), which developed the sensors with local partners, including the Open Institute, which used technology for social benefit.

“With extreme weather events becoming more frequent and erratic, access to real-time, accurate information can save lives and help build resilience among vulnerable communities.”

The Asia-Pacific region, the most prone to natural disasters in the world and home to a fifth of the global population, is struggling with more frequent and intense hazards, from cyclones and droughts to floods and heatwaves.

Countries are coping by putting in place heat action plans and early warning systems, drawing on lessons from the tsunami alerting system set up after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, which killed about 250,000 people.

PIN has so far installed two sensors in Cambodia on bridges on the Tonle Sap river, at a cost of US$300 (RM1,270) each.

Six more would be added by year-end, and the group hoped to have sensors in all 25 provinces by 2019, Conrad said.

Climate-linked disasters killed nearly 225,000 people between 2005 and 2014 in Asia Pacific, and caused about US$350 billion in damage, according to the Asian Development Bank, which will increase its climate finance to US$6 billion by 2020 to help nations cope. Reuters