But read on to the end to find out what US government agency is doing the research. Your tax dollars at work.
Caption: Residents flee the rising floodwaters in Pakistan. Credit: Cornell University
A fact sheet on DSS-WISE
The catastrophic flooding in Pakistan, which began with the annual monsoons towards the end of July 2010, has affected nearly 62,000 square miles — or one fourth of the entire surface of the USA and Alaska. Six million are homeless. Eight million children are at risk of disease. More than 1,600 are dead already. Flood waters have washed away entire towns, thousands of miles of roads and railways, and damaged the infrastructure of a large portion of the country. Thousands of health facilities are destroyed and rising waters have inundated crop-producing areas, threatening a food crisis. The Pakistani government now struggles to rescue and provide aid to millions – while still fighting with militant Islamist forces in many of the hardest-hit regions.
To help Pakistani authorities cope, a new Dept of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate computer model is being used by hydraulic engineers at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) – Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory (CHL) and forwarded to their counterparts in Pakistan. Under S&T’s Infrastructure and Geophysical Division the new computer model simulates the flooding, estimates the total drawdown of the floodwaters, and predicts how long it will take the waters to recede. DSS-WISE (Decision Support System – Water Infrastructure Security) incorporates and integrates thousands of data points – from historical, geographical, economical, and satellite info – and paints a current picture and prediction scenario to help with Pakistan’s disaster efforts.
The flooding scenarios are set up with a GIS (geographic information system)-based user-friendly pre-processor. DSS-WISE provides two-dimensional accurate predictive maps of flood arrival times, flood depths and velocities for the specified scenarios. The results provided by the numerical model (CCHE2D-FLOOD) can be directly imported onto a GIS environment to be displayed as maps and overlaid on various types of satellite imagery and background maps.
Flood simulations carried out by ERDC-CHL cover very large areas and the simulation times are relatively long (more than a month). The simulations are aimed not only for the propagation of the flood during the rising period but also for predicting the time required for the flood waters to recede. That is where the extremely robust algorithms implemented in DSS-WISE, which take into account wetting and drying, prove their worth.
The model was developed for S&T by researchers at the National Center for Computational Hydroscience and Engineering (NCCHE) at The University of Mississippi (UM). The model is the product of a research project of the Southeast Region Research Initiative (SERRI), a program funded by the DHS S&T. S&T’s Mike Matthews is the program manager. The feedback given to S&T by the ERDC-CHL personnel while using the DSS-WISE software is extremely valuable to the NCCHE-UM researchers (http://www.ncche.olemiss.edu/) who are preparing for the next phase of model development through sponsorship from SERRI (http://www.serri.org).
Pakistan’s flood disaster has given a demanding workout to the DSS-WISE software,” says Matthews, ” but, it has proven it can provide accurate and timely predictions even under very challenging modeling requirements.”
The Program Manager for DSS-WISE is DHS S&T’s Mike Matthews: ‘Mike.Matthews@dhs.gov‘
Any media inquiries should be directed to:
John Verrico: john.verrico@dhs.gov 202 254 2385
US Department of Homeland Security – Science and Technology
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I have worked with these kind of models and planning tools in my previous professional incarnation. They can and I suspect this one can, do the job. I don’t think it should come as any surprise where the system was developed or who is in charge of the work. I would hope the best tools, no matter who developed them or who paid for that development, would be used in any situation of this magnitude. If some agency can garner any favorable publicity, good for them. Isn’t that what press releases are for?
Perhaps it models at 62,000 sq mi, after you include long distance smoothing.
I remember when I was a kid, late 50s or the 60s that the ganges every few years used to prune the population there, has allah moved the floods north with that section of the people? (sarc off) so nothing new here since the 50s to my memory then.
“But read on to the end to find out what US government agency is doing the research. Your tax dollars at work.”
Not mine, fortunately. But for once the DOHS is doing something constructive which will help people whilst indirectly assisting the fight against militants in the area, who will view this as a key recruiting opportunity. Let’s not knock them too much, even if their figures are wonky again.
62,000 square miles is a little more than 20% of Pakistan.
I wonder where they got 25% from.
This Judith Curry blog post and comments go in detail regarding the Pakistan flood.
http://judithcurry.com/2010/09/20/pakistan-on-my-mind/
Malaga View
October 8, 2010 at 2:26 pm
“Is that the same Corps of Engineers that did such a great job in New Orleans?”
I guess you’ve been drinking the socialist kool-aid. The USACE had been screaming for over FORTY years that a disaster was on the way. But the demoncrats are more interested in playing house then fixing problems. New Orleans’ shoddy corrupt government is responsible for what happened to New Orleans and no one else.
62,000 sq. miles? OMG! Gore was right! The seas are really rising!!!!!
Wait… didn’t the former space agency “NASA” make a similar mistake wound up ramming a probe into Mars a while back?
“T’would seem that most of us here know our geography better than the Corps of Engineers does
The floods in Pakistan are a regular event.
from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_floods#Pakistan
In 2003, Sindh province was bading affected due to monsoon rains causing damages in billions.
In 2007, Cyclone Yemyin submerged lower part of Balochistan Province in sea water killing 380 people. Before that it killed 213 people in Karachi on its way to Balochistan.
In 2009, Karachi was flooded. (see 2009 Karachi floods)
In 2010, from Mid-July till Mid-August – Pakistan’s four provinces (Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Southern Punjab and Sindh) were badly affected during the monsoon rains when dams, rivers and lakes overflowed killing atleast 1,750-2,000 people,injuring 2,500 and affecting 23 million people. The flood is considered as worst in Pakistan’s history affecting people of all four provinces and Azad Jamu and Kashmir Region of Pakistan.[6] (see 2010 Pakistan floods)
[snip – Best not to go there. ~ Evan]
Where do I go to object?
In you case I am not sure where you should go. But when you should go is Nov. 2.
I am waiting a reply on the promise of my health insurance premium going down 3000% and now I have to deal with this math. It gives me a headache. If they are pulling km2 figures out of the air, I think much of the reports are also in great error.
Boy are the Pakistani’s going to be pissed when the computer models tell them that when they get to high ground, they cannot build fires to warm themselves since the CO2 will make the flood waters rise even faster.
Is the 20%+ of Pakistan under water counted as land? If not, that would make the algebra even worse.
You would think that some people would get a clue.
Here’s the ORIGINAL source, which has been rephrased all over the WWW;
http://www.engineering.olemiss.edu/news/newsdesk/NCCHE-Pakistan/Flood_Disaster_Modeling_fact_sheet_R1.pdf
You would think that those regurgitating this all over the WWW would try to link to the correct source material;
“The catastrophic flooding in Pakistan, which began with the annual monsoons toward the end of July 2010, has affected nearly 62,000 square miles—equivalent to one-fourth of the entire surface of the USA and Alaska.”
So, who may I ask decided to leave off the “equivalent to” and replace it with “or” anyway?
The gullability of some people. REALLY? REALLY!
It wasn’t DHS or ERDC or Ole Miss, that’s for sure.
Maybe they should start with this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_floods
Reading the comments for this post was the most fun I’ve had here.
This is the WRONG blog to post something so egregiously wrong as “62,000 square miles — or one fourth of the entire surface of the USA and Alaska.” ROFL.
My state of Illinois is 57,918 sq miles.
If we are each almost 25% of the size of the U.S. I in particular think we are not getting our fair share of government money. It must all be going to Michael Mann. Damn that Mann, anyway! I’ve heard he is a helluva fund raiser, but we want some, too!
It’s true that using “or” where the original used “equivalent to” might mislead someone who didn’t know that Pakistan is not part of the United States. Except for this point of geography, the two expressions convey the same fact, which is mathematical. It doesn’t appear to me that any of the gullible contributors to this blog blundered with respect to the geography.
That said, I do wish that people who are quoting something would do so verbatim or indicate clearly when they have decided to paraphrase a few words. In this case, it wouldn’t have been worth the trouble.
old44 says:
October 8, 2010 at 3:18 pm
“Poor old Hawaii, left out, again.”
I noticed that too, but I was more concernd about the other 56 states President Obama mentioned.
Be kind! Let’s hope that this and every other form of assistance is actually helping some people in need and not just feathering someone’s university, COE, and/or political nest (both here and in Pakistan).
You could fit 62,000 square miles of flood into New Hampshire and Vermont and still have plenty of dry land for boat launches, motels and fishing off the banks. What a bunch of maroons.
“The catastrophic flooding in Pakistan, which began with the annual monsoons towards the end of July 2010, has affected nearly 62,000 square miles — or one fourth of the entire surface of the USA and Alaska.”
You know that the state of science education is reaching a low in this country when a “fact sheet” starts out like this…
Wow! so much water.
They must be in acute need of dry US flags to burn …..