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IN PAIN, FLOODPLAINS Floodplains are an integral part of the flood regime and natural drainage. They give the floodwaters the room to spread across a large area, which diminishes their damage. But, people are encroaching these lands and building upon them. Constructing houses, roads, railways, canals, urban and industrial centres on these lands block the natural drainage system. No wonder, therefore, the force of floods has not diminished. It has only increased. Add to this the dangerous mix of climate change, which experts say, is likely to cause heavier monsoons and more devastating storms. So, floodwaters rampage these lands and the lives and livelihoods of the people living on them.
The crisis has deepened also because the natural flood managers, forests and wetlands, are being destroyed systematically. Massive deforestation has aggravated the flashiness of the rivers and their silt load due to higher erosion. Destruction of wetlands, which act as water sponges and are natural flood moderators, is another spin-off of over-exploitation of land. For example, more than a third of the area comprising of lakes, ponds, marshes and watercourses between the Ghaghra and Ganga, which form the wetlands of eastern UP, have already been lost. The story is the same in the wetlands of Bihar, Bengal and Assam. “Degradation of catchment areas and loss of flood plains to urban development and agriculture have accentuated the intensity of floods”, states India’s Planning Commission’s Eleventh Five Year Plan document. CURSED KOSI Kosi River is an epitome of how mismanagement causes devastation. The river is one of the largest tributaries of Ganga. It has a steep gradient in its upper Himalayan reaches, but after Chatra, it faces abrupt flattening in the plains. This makes the river shift its course quite regularly. Another key characteristic is its high sediment load. The silt yield of the river is one of the highest in the world. Excessive soil erosion in its upper region caused by both natural and human factors has increased the silt load of the river. It floods in the monsoon due to extreme rainfall, deposits coarse silt on agricultural lands, and shifts its course causing more damage. The high density of population on the river’s floodplains makes each of its move even more deadly. Human interventions have only worsened the situation for the people of North Bihar. The measures to control the inundating river have, instead, spelt doom for them. The recent floods are a stark example of this. FINDING ANSWERS Kosi’s curse finds expression in all the rivers of India, and North Bihar’s saga is true of every flood-prone region in the country – from Assam, Bengal, Orissa to UP and Rajasthan. At present, there are 4525 large and small dams in the country, and more than 15,675km of embankments. As per the Eleventh Five Year Plan, the total area ‘reasonably protected against flood’ by end of the Tenth Plan is about 18.22 million hectares. And we are spending stupendous amounts of money on constructing these structures. During the beginning of the Tenth Plan, the Planning Commission outlaid Rs.4619 crores for State sector to protect 1.93 MH of land against flood. What difference has it made? None. The flooding rivers still claim lakhs of human lives, damage crores of property and infrastructure, destroy agricultural lands and kill livestock… This will continue. Because people will continue to live on the “disaster-prone” floodplains. Because there is no space left in the hinterlands to allow them to move back. So if we cannot move away from floods, what can we do? FORECASTING DISASTER One solution is, of course, alerting and warning people before the catastrophe actually hit them. This means, developing efficient and accurate flood forecasting and early warning systems in the country. Many people consider these services as one of the most cost-effective measures available today. They help alert people in the flood risk area, give time to the disaster management agencies to move in and prepare for the impending disaster and thus, reduce the damages. In India, Central Water Commission of Government of India is responsible for issuing flood forecasts at 172 stations – 145 for water level forecast and 27 for inflow forecast. These stations are located in 14 flood prone states, in a Union Territory and in Delhi. THE PROCESS
According to E Satyanarayan, the chief state engineer stationed at Birpur near the Nepalese border where the Kosi River breached its embankments, flood management officials had sent four desperate warnings between August 9 and 16. But, the messages went unanswered because the relevant officer was on leave and there was no one else to substitute for him. Eventually on August 16, warning telegrams were sent to 11 senior officials associated with flood water management in Patna, Bihar. But these, too, were ignored. Two days later the inevitable disaster occurred in Bihar. So, what is the future? “Flood forecasting methods are being improved in the country”, said Professor Vishwanath of NIDM. “The government is working with bodies like United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to make flood forecast more reliable and timely”, he added. This includes installing automatic data collection system by sensors, transmission of data by latest techniques of communication, and formulation of forecasts using computer-based comprehensive models. Flood preparedness and awareness among the people have a key role to play.
All these developments will take time, and will still depend on how smoothly the system functions. As for the structural measures, the government still plans to increase the embankments and the number of dams in the country. It plans to effectively monitor the functioning of these structures, and carry out pre- and post-monsoon checks and special repairs. But, there is just one real solution to the problem of floods – people must re-learn to live with floods. We had this wisdom, and we lost it somewhere along the way. But now, we must revive our past lessons. Real action needs to be taken in the floodplains. Managing these fragile lands adeptly and cleverly is the key to salvation. Disciplined land-use and settlement policies can emerge only if a determined government can undertake land reforms and involve the poor who live in these areas in the management of their natural resources. The most crucial step would be to ‘flood zone’ the various states of the country. It includes demarcation of flood-prone areas and prescribing strict guidelines and land-use policies. However, this is not going to be an easy task. The plains are densely populated and there is extreme shortage of land. So each step will be fiercely opposed. Meanwhile, we can only pray for a calmer Kosi in the coming years. “The vast plains can still have the capacity to support millions of people and there are few signs of irreparable damage… but only if they (people) are disciplined, only if they learn to live in harmony with the natural surroundings they have inherited, and only if their management systems are equitable and sustainable. We know very little about how to do this but a beginning has to be made…” (the 3rd Report on State of India’s Environment, CSE). |
