Weak climate resilience leaves 75% Indian districts prone to extreme events

Over 638 million people in India are vulnerable to extreme climatic events that have surged in the last decade

While 2020 will be remembered as one of the darkest years of the 21st century owing to an uncontrolled virus-borne pandemic, extreme climatic events have made their presence felt as well. Severe floods, repeated cyclones, and extreme droughts dominated the year, hinting at major climatic shifts in and around the Indian subcontinent.

A new report released on Thursday says that over 75 per cent of districts in India are hotspots of extreme climate events. The study paints a grim picture and calls for immediate steos to address issues likely to affect over 638 million people living in these areas.

Titled 'Preparing India for Extreme Climate Events: Mapping Hotspots and Response Mechanisms', the report by Council on Energy, Environment and Water found that over 97 million people were currently being exposed to extreme floods, 258 districts have been affected by cyclones during the past decade and the yearly average of drought-affected districts have risen 13 times since 2005.

Two men swim through a tube in floodwater after heavy rainfall, in Haridwar. (ANI)

The study provides a micro-level hazard assessment of climatic extremes in India. Speaking to Business Standard, lead researcher with CEEW, Abinash Mohanty, said, “Changing land-use patterns, unsustainable urbanisation, the encroachment of the natural ecosystem have led to a turn in the climatic pattern in India, which is causing extreme weather and environmental events.”

Climate reversal across India

Over the years several areas across India have witnessed extreme weather events, a flood-prone area experiencing drought, a surge in the intensity of cyclonic storms, and uneven rainfall patterns. The report highlights that the frequency of associated flood events such as landslides, heavy rainfall, hailstorms, thunderstorms, and cloudbursts surged by over 20 times between 1970 and 2019.

Extreme event hotspots in Inda. (CEEW)

Bihar has been one of the worst-affected states by the onset of a wave of floods in the last few years. While some parts of the state face floods, another faces drought. Areas of Cuttack, Guntur, Kurnool, Mahbubnagar, Nalgonda, Paschim Champaran, and Srikakulum have become drought-prone in recent years. Coastal southern Indian states such as Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka have also been increasingly witnessing more droughts driven by local climate change.

During the past 50 years, the frequency of floods increased almost eight times. In 2019, India had 16 extreme flood events that affected 151 districts.

A correlation between floods and cyclones

The change in land-use pattern with increasing construction activity and deforestation has induced a warmer micro-climate in several parts of the country including UP, Bihar, and other northern states.

People visit Prakasam Barrage as excess floodwater released into the Krishna river, in Vijayawada.

This microclimatic change leads to temperature rises and warm air gets trapped in the atmosphere, leading to extreme cloudbursts in several non-coastal regions and triggering flash floods. Meanwhile, when the same warm air gets pulled towards colder regions, it triggers depressions ending into storm surges and cyclones. The depression also leads to unpredicted heavy rainfalls along the eastern coastline. The report stated, “The last 50 years also recorded a 12-fold surge in the number of associated cyclonic events.”  

Developing climate resilience

With the situation taking an adverse turn in the last decade, one of the core requirements is developing a renewed strategy to counter and subdue the effects of these extreme events. Mohanty argues that there is a need for developing a localised risk assessment strategy to formulate a climate risk atlas for India.

The change in land-use pattern with increasing construction activity and deforestation has induced a warmer micro-climate in several parts of the country.

Estimating climatic risks was one of the key thematic areas of the global Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Mohanty called for developing an integrated emergency surveillance system to facilitate a systematic and sustained response to emergencies.

Another crucial requirement is providing budgetary cushion to the disaster management authorities at the district and state level to be better prepared with improved infrastructure and strategy.

“Naturally occurring cyclone and rainfall that happens will happen, but what we have done is aggravated that process, what we need is participatory partners to come together and develop an adaptive strategy so that these phenomena can be tackled,” Mohanty adds.