Flood And Fury

Context: Devastation caused by destructive floods and high-intensity rainfall in coasts and hills underlines ecological fragility, calls for revisiting development paradigms.

Underlying factors behind climate disasters in Western Ghats/Himalayas

• Climate change: Rise in extreme weather events, chaotic monsoonal behaviour even as the southwest monsoon retreats from the country and the easterlies are replacing the westerlies.
• Geographical factors: Topography of most hilly regions makes them prone to landslides.
• Development and environment degradation: Deforestation, quarrying, road construction and other land-use changes increase vulnerabilities during episodes of heavy rainfall.
• Governance issues – Mismanagement in dam opening: State governments in most parts of the country have been criticised for leaving such decisions till it’s too late.
  • Information gap: Dam operators blame the delay on not being alerted about extreme weather events in time.
• Investment gap: Delayed investments in disaster management systems limiting capacity to respond.
• Reluctance to change: In 2011, Madhav Gadgil committee recommended that a roughly 1,30,000 sq km stretch spanning Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu be declared an environmentally sensitive zone.
  • None of the six states agreed with its recommendations.
  • The substantially diluted recommendations of another committee headed by K Kasturirangan also did not get much traction in the Western Ghat states.

Way Forward: There is an urgent need for greater coordination amongst forecasting agencies and reservoir management authorities to ensure the timely opening of dam spillways and create holding capacity in the reservoirs to absorb excess rainfall.