Shifting Flood Vulnerability Zones Increasing India's Disaster Management Challenges

On July 4, India’s Meteorological Department (IMD) forecasted heavy rainfall in Assam and its neighbouring state of Arunachal Pradesh which sits above Assam. This warning has left the people of the state worried as it came even before Assam’s areas hit by the June-end flood, which has claimed seven lives and affected thousands of people, could return to normalcy.

Assam in northeastern India is no stranger to devastating floods, often multiple times a year. Between 2012 and 2022, floods in Assam claimed 1,010 human lives, caused loss of 21,898 cattle, and damage to the tune of Rs 40,721 crore. However, harder days might be ahead, as according to the state’s disaster management plan for 2022, floods are going to rise by more than 25% in the southern parts of Assam. 

“Small islands in the Brahmaputra and Barak river basin are isolated from the rest of Assam and have no permanent health care facilities and are prone to frequent flooding. As climate change continues, these islands will become increasingly vulnerable,” says the report, which also gave the figures for the losses due to floods in the past 10 years.  

It adds that since floods and droughts are likely to intensify, “it is very likely that a further reduction in forest cover may occur”, which “may amplify the impacts on agriculture, water resources, and the composition of the remaining forestland.”

One of the most notable changes in the monsoon pattern over northeast India is excessive rain in quick bursts preceded and followed by extended dry days, which makes the region more vulnerable to flooding than before. 

India, however, has even bigger challenges to face, as the country’s flood vulnerability zones are also changing. According to meteorologist Mahesh Palawat, vice-president, of meteorology and climate change at Skymet Weather Services, the rainfall pattern is shifting from northwest India and Indo-Gangetic plains to central India and the western coast of the country.

The central parts of the country – particularly Madhya Pradesh, eastern Rajasthan, and Gujarat – are becoming the most vulnerable areas, along with parts of Konkan and Goa and coastal Karnataka.

At the same time, heavy downpours over the traditional flood-prone areas of Indo-Gangetic plains, including Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar are not expected. 

“Usually, low pressure or depression weather systems develop over the northern Bay of Bengal and tend to travel in a northwest direction, towards the Indo-Gangetic plains. But over the past decade, these weather systems are taking a westerly route, across southern Odisha, Telangana, southern Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha (Gujarat), northern Goa, and southern Rajasthan. These patterns will be observed in the months of July and August on three to four occasions,” Palawat says.

This brings forth the problem of inadequate infrastructure in these new regions. “These areas, particularly Madhya Pradesh, do not have a sufficient network of rivers or canals to carry the water to the sea. Flash floods are more common over there. There aren’t enough water reservoirs or dams to store the excess water. These states need to plan for channelising the surplus water,” he says. 

While flash floods destroy standing crops and the upper layer of the land,  proper planning can lead to positive usage of the surplus water to benefit the farmers, Palawat says, pointing out that Gujarat, southern Rajasthan, Vidarbha and Marathwada regions of Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh are predominantly rainfed areas, where irrigation facilities are insufficient.
 
According to Aditi Mukherji, director at the climate change impact platform of the CGIAR, a global agriculture innovation network, India needs to adopt both short-term and long-term measures to effectively deal with the prospect of increasing flood intensity. One of the priorities should be to keep the floodplains free from encroachments as much as possible. 

“Exposure to flooding has increased because of increasing human settlement in flood-prone areas. Poor land use planning has led to an increase in flood-related damages. If floodplains are occupied, if river flows are disturbed, floods will continue to wreak havoc. All infrastructural development in the flood-prone areas, and the mountainous region, should take place keeping the aspects of climatic changes in mind,” she says. 

Mukherji adds that effective communication with people regarding short-term flood predictions needs to be improved and water bodies and wetlands in and around cities and towns need to be protected and restored to reduce the impact of urban flooding. 

Experts also stress the need for increased regional cooperation between countries regarding sharing of data related to rainfall patterns, as heavy rainfall in quick bursts in Nepal and Bhutan often leads to flooding in India, while heavy rainfall in Meghalaya and Assam of northeast India has resulted in flooding in Bangladesh. 

A recently-published paper, titled ‘Centring local values in assessing and addressing climate-related losses and damages: A case study in Durgapur Upazilla, Bangladesh’, noted that in the summer of 2022, excessive rainfall in the Meghalaya hills contributed to flooding, resulting in widespread losses and damages in Durgapur Upazilla, north-central Bangladesh. 

“People in the (Durgapur) region already face droughts, riverbank erosion, and unpredictable variability in rainfall and temperature. Climate change increases these hazards’ frequency, timing, and severity, resulting in increased losses and damages,” says the report, published by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). 

Similarly, Assam’s disaster management plan speaks of floods caused by the release of water from dams upstream in Bhutan and neighbouring States in the northeast. “Release of water from Doyang (Nagaland), Ranganadi (Arunachal Pradesh) and dams in Bhutan causes large scale inundation in Assam,” it says. Such release of water is mostly caused by a spell of heavy rainfall in quick bursts surpassing reservoir capacities.