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ENVIRONMENT: India’s Floods in Retrospect

NEW DELHI, Oct 15 2009 (IPS) - “For almost one full day, we were desperate, wet and hungry,” said Raja Angamutthu. “Our house, farmland, utensils, everything was floating in a watery grave while we looked on helplessly!”

The third-generation farmer in Andhra Pradesh’s Cudappah district is one of tens of thousands of people that suffered the massive impact of the devastating floods — caused by a deep depression in the Bay of Bengal — that wreaked havoc in the southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka early this month.

The colossal loss reported by both states in terms of lost human lives, commercial disruptions and agricultural losses is pegged at a whopping Rs 32,000 crore rupees (6.9 billion U.S. dollars). Vast swaths of farmland swamped by floods have damaged vital installations like public infrastructure, irrigation facilities, roads and power and communications links.

Estimates indicate that over 1.5 lakh hectares of farmland in northern Karnataka were completely submerged due to torrential rains while about 1.12 lakh hectares were impacted in Kurnool, Guntur, Cuddapah and Mehboobnagar districts in Andhra Pradesh.

Crops like chili, cotton, paddy, maize, groundnut, jowar and pulses – lifeline for millions of farmers – have been wrecked completely. Millions have been rendered homeless, leading the state governments to declare the devastation a ‘national calamity’.

This is not the first time that India has experienced a natural calamity of this magnitude. Over the last decade itself, a cyclone whip lashed the eastern state of Orissa in 1999, a gargantuan earthquake rattled Gujarat in 2001 while a tsunami tore into south India in 2004, killing and displacing millions.

Meteorologists say that natural disasters in India are increasingly happening due to the changing dynamics of climate patterns, increasing population density, unplanned urbanization, deforestation and desertification.

In an interview with IPS, agricultural scientist Dr Prabhu Swaminathan said rapid deforestation—triggered by clearing of forests to accommodate more construction and people—is a prime reason for floods in India.

“Floods occur when a river breaches its maximum capacity for carrying water,” explained the scientist. “When there is no forest, water rapidly reaches the rivers, increasing the possibility of floods. Indiscriminate felling of trees triggers soil deposition, which reduces land’s ability to cope with the pressures exerted by an increasing population.”

Dr Swaminathan added that when there are no roots of the trees to hold the soil, it is flushed into the rivers, augmenting its sediments in the river channels. Consequently, the river’s water-carrying capacity plummets, making it more prone to overflowing on its banks. “This is a prime reason why the risk of floods increases each monsoon in South Asia,” he said.

According to the Ministry of Water Resources, about 60 percent of the Indian landmass is prone to earthquakes of varying intensities while over 40 million hectares are susceptible to floods. However, each time devastation occurs, there is collective hand-wringing in various government ministries over the socio-economic damage caused by disasters. With time, all is forgotten.

Admittedly, India has made commendable scientific advancement in the field of disaster forecast and management. However, its benefits rarely translate into preventing the loss of human life and property at the crucial time.

Experts point out that the Indian government lacks a holistic and multi-disciplinary approach, which factors in scientific, engineering and social processes. The incorporation of risk reduction in developmental strategies is also amiss, they say.

It is not as if India lacks the requisite organisational architecture for coping with such disasters. Multifarious outfits at both national and state levels exist in the area of disaster management and prevention. At the national level, there is a National Disaster Framework that oversees institutional mechanisms, disaster prevention strategy and early warning systems.

Then there is a National Crisis Management Committee and a Crisis Management Group. The National Committee on Disaster Management executes necessary institutional and legislative measures for an efficient and long-term strategy to manage natural disasters. At the state level, there are crisis management groups as also a Calamity Relief Fund.

Are too many cooks spoiling the broth then?

According to a top official of the Central Water Commission, who declined to be named since he is not authorised to speak to the media, the Ministry of Water Resources issues flood forecasts and warnings. “A flood alert is issued well in advance of the actual arrival of floods to enable people to take appropriate measures and shift to safer places. But despite all this, poor people still get caught in such disasters because of woefully inadequate systems at the local level,” he said.

Floods in India, added the official, like the rest of South Asia, continue to be a menace primarily because of the huge quantity of silt deposits which raise the bed level in many rivers. A prime example of this phenomenon is river Meethi near India’s commercial capital of Mumbai whose silt deposits—and the consequent flooding caused by it—bring the metropolis to a grinding halt each monsoon.

Practical arrangements like regular clearance of silt, sand and weeds from the drains to ensure a seamlessly working drainage system before monsoons hit go a long way in preventing such disasters.

To check flooding, embankments along all the vulnerable river stretches should be made. Apart from this, human settlements in catchments areas should be discouraged and afforestation—the planting of trees for commercial purposes—encouraged.

Sensitisation programs for public awareness and community participation are also needed. There must also be regular drills for the public to teach them how to evacuate buildings, towns and villages at short notice. Institutions at local levels should be coached on better water management to fight catastrophes, said Dr Swaminathan.

India can perhaps take a leaf out of the books of other countries to mitigate the debilitating effect of floods. Japan, for example, has used dams for flood control and power generation by building a series of dams and reservoirs upstream and then connecting them to a power plant through a waterway channel. This helps manage the amount of downstream water flow from the dams, thus stabilizing the river ecosystem.

Japan has also successfully developed a system of rice cultivation in harmony with its natural water cycle and rich biodiversity. The paddies help to regulate the water flow downstream. As water takes time to circulate through the paddy system, it acts as an efficacious barrier against floods.

As floods besiege India with unfailing regularity—displacing millions and destroying life and property worth billions—it is time the country put in place better disaster management mechanisms to ensure the safety of its people and its economy.