Fury of floods

India needs a long-term strategy

The mayhem created in several states by the very first bout of intense rains in the current monsoon season exposes the country’s unpreparedness to cope with floods, which have become a recurring and increasingly destructive annual scourge. Also laid bare is the absence of any long-term strategy to tame floods, notwithstanding the fact that the extent of area vulnerable to frequent deluges, and the economic losses caused by them, are on the rise. The country’s overall flood-prone area, which was reckoned by the Rashtriya Barh Ayog (National Flood Commission) in its 1980 report at 40 million hectares, or 12 per cent of the total geographical area, has since expanded to over 50 million hectares. Flash floods are now common in places that were earlier not deemed flood-prone. The relatively arid zones in Rajasthan and parts of Gujarat are typical examples of that.

The “flood vulnerability index” of the National Disaster Management Authority has identified Punjab, Haryana, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Assam, Gujarat and Odisha as the states most susceptible to floods. The National Remote Sensing Centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation has found several new stretches in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal that are vulnerable to submergence in the aftermath of heavy downpours, which have become more frequent due to climate change and other factors. The hilly states in the geologically fragile and anthropologically mauled Himalayan range, including Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and the north-eastern states, are, in any case, inherently susceptible to floods due to landslides, subsidence, and the consequential re-routing of the natural course of rivers and water channels.

Yet, regrettably, no pre-emptive moves are afoot to mitigate the fury of floods. In fact, flood control, which used to be one of the regular planks of the multipurpose irrigation-cum-hydro-power projects and other water management programmes in the past, has ceased to be so any more. No new projects of this kind have been initiated in the recent past. Even the existing dams have tended to become more of a bane than a boon due to unregulated and uncoordinated water releases from these structures. Many areas in the central and peninsular India often get flooded due to this reason. Deforestation and the increased incidence of global warming-driven freakish weather, including cloud-bursts and cyclones, are among the key causes that have aggravated the flood risk. Besides eroding soil and lowering its capacity to soak rain water, the denudation of vegetative cover in river catchments, has increased the load of sediments in riverbeds and reduced their water-carrying capacity. Moreover, the natural floodplains of rivers have been encroached upon, thereby curbing their ability to act as natural buffers against floods.

This aside, urban floods have now emerged as a new hazard that requires different strategies to deal with. Many large cities like Srinagar, Patna, Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi often suffer from water-logging, with their roads turning into virtual rivulets. This is attributable to several factors, including outmoded and poorly maintained drainage systems, unplanned expansion of habitation, and indiscriminate disposal of garbage and other urban wastes. All these issues need to be addressed in a holistic manner to alleviate the menace of recurring floods. Setting up an experts’ panel to prepare a national flood control plan may be worth considering.