Man-Made Factors of Kerala Floods

What is the issue?

The immediate cause of devastating floods in Kerala and other parts of India has contribution of man-made factors.

How Kerala and other states are affected due to floods?

• Kerala - The state is being flooded due to sustained and intense downpour of rains.
• Most reservoirs got filled up earlier than usual this year due to excessive rain.
• Several parts of neighbouring Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh are either reeling from floods or facing the threat.
• This aside, seven other states Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Gujarat, Assam, Nagaland and Odisha have also witnessed devastation due to floods, landslides and other rain-related incidents.

What are the natural causes behind such calamity?

• Climate change is playing a significant role in aggravating the flooding menace.
• The projections made by a global panel on climate change indicate that the overall rainfall in the Indian subcontinent is likely to increase by 10 per cent in terms of both quantity and intensity by 2050.
• Some evidence of it is already noticeable by way of increased frequency of extreme weather events, such as the unprecedented rainfall and cloudbursts in Kerala this year and in Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, and Maharashtra earlier.
• With the unabated degradation of river catchments and heavy siltation of water bodies, the incidence of such episodes is set to exacerbate.

What are the man -made factors behind this calamity?

• Kerala witnessed widespread deforestation, rampant construction and indiscriminate quarrying in past 100 years which has triggered landslides and also obstructed water channels which is worsening the deluge.
• Almost all the 80-odd dams of the regions adjoining kerala are brimming over.
• The governments of these states are unable to evolve a common plan for releasing the excess water.
• This lack of coordination in water releases from dams in Kerala and the adjoining states has further aggravated the situation, and even hampering the rescue and relief operations.
• The state government also seems guilty of not taking some of the routine risk mitigation measures enumerated in the National Disaster Management Policy.

What measures are needed to address such calamities?

• A flood code having ready-to-use contingency plans to cope with inundation, on the lines of the existing drought code, is badly needed for all flood-prone areas.
• Floods, indeed, seem to have become an integral feature of the monsoon season, thus proper flood-proofing effort need to be the part of government’s protocol.
• While in other countries dams and barrages are built to ward off floods, in India, they tend to serve the opposite purpose because of unprofessional management of the impounded waters.
• This has necessitated substantial enhancement in the efficiency and reliability of the weather- and flood-forecasting systems to forewarn civic administrations of impending disasters for timely relief action.

Source: Business Standard