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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Caught in the eddies -Nivedita Khandekar

Caught in the eddies -Nivedita Khandekar

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published Published on Aug 28, 2015   modified Modified on Aug 28, 2015
-The Statesman

It's the same story every year. Heavy rains, huge volume of water spilling over the water channels and mismanagement of rivers in spate, leading to heavy floods inundating large parts of India. This year too the story is no different. Even as this article goes to print, Assam, West Bengal, Manipur, Odisha, Gujarat and Rajasthan almost a third of India is either facing floods or coping with a trail of devastation left behind by the unbridled rivers a few days ago.

Displaced people and destroyed crop-land are the two most visible impacts that can occur even with two-days of floods, forget the weeks or more of inundation. A case in point is Assam, which faces the flood fury every year without fail. By 15 August, nearly two lakh people from seven districts of Assam were affected due to flash floods triggered by heavy rains with almost 87 villages flooded. A total of 12,000 hectares of crop land remained under water for over a week even as more than three dozen relief camps gave shelter to almost 20,000 flood-hit people.

Of course, it is the mighty Brahmaputra against which the humans are pitted there but in other parts of the country, even relatively smaller rivers, such as Tapi, cause lot of damage.

Indian monsoon, which gives a unique characteristic to the Indian geography, flora and fauna, and sustains the country's economy, often turns out to be a bane as it brings calamities such as floods, erosion, landslides and in turn, loss of life, loss of cattle, accidents and damage to property, both public and private.

Damaging floods

It makes for an alarming read to know the extent of damage that can be caused due to floods. Data compiled by the Central Water Commission (CWC) shows that as much as 2.29 million hectares (mha) area was affected by floods in 1953, which escalated to 31.58 mha in 2013, the maximum area affected since 1953. The table (above) paints a grim picture about loss of lives, cattle, damage to or loss of property and public utilities. The total damage caused by floods was estimated at Rs 11,095.14 crore during 2013.

Sadly, it is the poor, vulnerable population that faces the maximum loss of life, loss of livestock and damage to houses and farm land. This not just affects this population’s livelihood but also cripples them for life in many cases as flooding leads to health issues as well.

The table lists out the data (all India) for 2013, the year which also saw the devastating Uttarakhand floods that led to long term damages.

Blessed rivers

India is blessed with hundreds of rivers, some of them perennial, with varying catchment areas. Although there is no data on the area covered by the rivers and canals, the total length across the country is estimated to be 2 lakh kms. The annual precipitation, including snowfall, is estimated to be 4,000 BCM (billion cubic metres).

So what happens to all this rain? All this water, when not tapped and stored, just flows down to the sea. And as happens in many cases, the water not properly channelised quickly leads to damages: loss of lives, livestock and property.

Climate change has emerged as a major contributor for frequent cause for disasters. For countries such as India, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has already warned of high intensity yet erratic precipitation, which will mean, there would be less days of rains but those few days will receive intense rainfall. This makes large areas vulnerable to more damage.

Thus the pertinent question to raise is whether enough is being done for flood management.

Creating storage

The conventional thinking that has been followed by Indian administrators is to create dams and reservoirs on the rivers to store the excess rainwater during monsoon to be used in lean season. It remains a topic of research as to how much of a capacity has been created and how much is actually put to use for various purposes, including domestic needs. As with typical government affairs, there have been a number of commissions and committees to study flood management and suggest measures. Not all suggestions have been taken in the right spirit.

Traditionally, floods and also drought have occurred on a regular basis. Not all floods are bad and there are places and people, who have learnt to live with the floods. But a best practice is where this excess flood water is diverted, re-directed and stored, and if needed, used in case of drought. The best method of storage is off-channel reservoirs. In fact, there is no dearth of examples, many of them ancient ones, that have stemmed out of local community’s wisdom. The 2nd century anicut dam on the Cauvery or the largest artificial lakes in Bhopal are two of the best examples.

Way out?

Three years ago, when scores of volunteers and activists of Yamuna Rakshak Dal along with saints and saffron-clads sadhus from Braj area had marched down to Delhi from Vrindavan with a simple demand of "letting the Yamuna flow round the year", the then minister for water resources Harish Rawat promised a slew of measures. Identifying sites for and building a series of off- channel reservoirs for the entire length of Yamuna was one of the most prominent of the promises, welcomed by environmentalist and the marching activists alike.

Off-channel reservoirs are artificial lakes built near the main river channel that store the excess flood waters during monsoon and regulate its flow back to the river. This helps in a major way by recharging ground water and in dire times, can be directly used by the population near it.

Unfortunately as the pacified Yamuna Rakshak Dal activists made their way back home, the government took no time in forgetting what it had promised. The new regime, now more than a year old, too has not pursued any of the promises. Had it been done for the Yamuna, it would have served as a major role model for rest of the country.

Of course, for any serious effort at off-channel reservoirs, the government will face hurdles over displacement of people. But surely, this displacement will be very less when compared to numerous villages being uprooted to make way for reservoirs of large dams. Moreover, over the decades, it has been acknowledged, albeit grudgingly, even by powers that be that dams, once propagated as "temples of modern India" disturb the natural flow of silt during floods, especially in the Gangetic plains, which is a major contributing factor to make this land so fertile. Reservoirs of irrigation projects or hydro-power projects shrink in size when silt fills them, so it neither serves the power production or irrigation potential, nor helps the poor farmer whose soil is naturally replenished every year by the silt deposited.

Environmentalists have, therefore, been opposing large dams. That leaves the case for decentralised, small efforts at various sites. This includes other means of catching the rain where it falls being practiced on a smaller scale. A few individuals and community organisations started the farm-pond concept to catch rainwater and recharge ground water with it. There are scores of successful examples in Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh and Mahoba in Uttar Pradesh. Recently, Maharashtra government has embarked on an ambitious farm-pond programme to fight the drought, especially in Marathwada region, a practice nevertheless worthy of emulation by all areas facing water crisis in summers.

This does not mean that one overlooks a major contributing factor for floods, especially near the urban centres with rampant encroachment of river channels and flood plains. Building embankments and channelisation of rivers has been practiced at several places but Mumbai’s July 2005 example or Kashmir’s September 2014 example shows how both are rendered ineffective in the event of massive rains. Leaving the natural course of the river free to flow is relatively the best way to tackle excess rains.

Any and every measure will need funds, will have a cost attached to it. Be it off-channel reservoirs, be it preventing encroachment of river floodplains and also abstaining from further building large dams (which project proponents advocate citing power requirement). But, as shown in the above table, it will be worth the while in consideration of the damage caused due to floods and the subsequent huge cost incurred in terms of loss of lives, livestock, soil and property year after year.

The Statesman, 27 August, 2015, http://www.thestatesman.com/news/supplements/caught-in-the-eddies/85450.html


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