Kerala floods - A complete Analysis

Kerala has seen a devastating flood recently which is believed to be worst in nearly a century. Last time it saw a devastating floods is believed to be in 1925. Let's now analyse the reasons for this food.

Reasons for flood:

1. FlashFloods: This is a monsoon season in Kerala which recieves major part of the orogenic rainfall due is location in western part of western ghats. This time it has received almost 40% more rainfall than its average in shorter period of time (Less than a week). This phenomenon of Heavydownpour in a shorter period creates flash floods. This lead to release of water from 80 dams leading to floods.
2. Rejected Madhav Gadgil's report: Madhav Gadgil chairman of Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel set up in 2010 has provided many suggestions to the government stating to define Eco Sensitive zones(ESZ I,II,III) based on the degree of threat. This committee has also suggested not to provide new license for Mining and also not to build any dams in ESZs. This report was rejected by the then govts. If this report was taken into consideration then we could have reduced the degree of disaster.
3. Rejected Kasturin Rangan's Report: After rejecting Gadgil's report the govt set an other panel to review Western Ghats with Kasturi Rangan as its head. This committee also gave similar recommendations like Gadgil to stop mining and quarrying and no new hydro power plants. But this was also not implemented.
4. Lack of Proper underground Drainage: Though well civilized, many parts of Kerala still didnot have a proper underground Drainage system. Hence the rainwater directed to the drainage overflowed on the roads leading to floods.
5. Lack of Planning on Dams: Rainfall started to worsen after July end. By predicting the heavy rainfall in coming days Kerala must have planned to release water from dams and reservoir by making it empty before heavy rainfall. This could have given a better place to store the floods by redirecting it to the Dams and Reservoirs.
6. Lack Of Implementation of Disaster Management Plan: Even though India has a comprehensive Disaster Management Plan and Guidelines. It failed to implement or become useful in actual scenarios. The main reason being its monotonous nature. This is because India being a 7th largest country its monotonous plan will not be applicable from Kashmir to Kanyakumari.

What Next?

1. India must now atleast learn from its past experiences and be ready for future with a well developed Disaster Management Plan and Guidelines specific for each region.
2. Apart from Disaster Management Plan, India must also develop its own resilience/Disaster Mitigation plan. This will help India to bring normalcy to the Disaster hit areas.
3. It now needs to consider Implementing Gadgil and Kasturi Rangan's recommendations.

Read Also:- Kerala-Back to Normalcy