Climate expert M Rajeevan has warned Kerala of more floods in the future and suggested ways to counter them. Rajeevan, who is a secretary in the Union Ministry of Earth Sciences, discussed in detail factors that triggered the heavy rains and subsequent deluge in Kerala in August, 2018. Read his earlier interview here.
Excerpts from an interview:
Why Kerala is receiving unusually intense rains of late?
Thicker rains are becoming a feature in several parts of the world. Earlier, say in the last century, it would take one full day for a region to receive 15cm rain. Today, it comes in 18 hours. More rain in less time.
The reason for this phenomenon, undoubtedly, is global warming. Studies have made it very clear that higher temperature enables the atmosphere to hold more water content.
Clouds will gather more water vapour. That will trigger heavy rains. It has been happening in several places of the globe; of late in Kerala as well.
Why rains in Kerala waned in between?
If the prediction is that the monsoon is going to be weak, it doesn’t mean there would only be light showers if at all. There can be heavy bouts of downpours; only that the overall average would be less than normal.
Flash rains, for instance, can bring floods. Kerala is getting a lot of them in recent years. Flash floods can suddenly swell rivers and cause deluge.
It’s not just global warming that causes floods in Kerala. There are local factors too. For instance, urbanisation adding to pollution and heating up the place.
What happens in its neighbourhood, too, can impact Kerala and its climate. Particularly since Kerala is a small state, sandwiched between the (Arabian) sea and mountains (Western Ghats). The slender land in the middle has a weak ecosystem that is extremely fragile.
What should Kerala do amid global warming?
The state should be on perpetual alert. Decisions must be quick and they should be executed with effective coordination. There should be a change in the general impression about the IMD. Weather predictions have gained a lot of accuracy in the past 10 years.
Kerala can learn from states such as Odisha, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. They take IMD predictions very seriously. Odisha became very vigilant about weather forecast ever since the 1999 cyclone that hit the (eastern) state. Today they have a very efficient weather forecast system.
The authorities take all rescue steps when there is a prediction about heavy rain, storm or cyclone. When IMD forecasts heavy rain, the Gujarat government will take steps to ensure the safety of everything and everyone along the banks of the state’s rivers.
It’s not that the IMD’s predictions turn out to be 100 per cent correct all the time. It doesn’t happen so anywhere in the world.
The IMD can give a clear profile of the weather for the next three or four days. Kerala has two radars: one in Kochi, the other in Thiruvananthapuram. They can help correctly forecast about rains for the next three or four hours. The system is called ‘nowcast’. Both the Kerala radars were in use this month.
Kerala needs scientific systems that enable governmental decisions on weather-related matters. They should work on their own, no matter whether a certain authority is present or absent in office.
A lot of officials merit good training. The system should be capable of giving solid forecast. It isn’t tough to carry it out. Such systems do exist in some parts of the country.
Forewarning of floods is made in India. Bhakra-Nangal (multipurpose dams in Himachal Pradesh) for instance, has it, but elsewhere in the country, many dams don’t have it. Some may exist in paper, but not in actual practice when it comes to implementation.
Emulate good models
Foreign countries have exemplary models. Take the US, for instance. Colorado River there flows along seven states of America.
They have exact calculations on how much water does it hold and how much of it can be used. The measurements of use vary with the states, as some need it for irrigation, others use it for hydel power.
What we, too, need is a similar system: to what level will the river water rise, how much of it will have to be released, how much is left to be shelved, how much electricity has to be generated, for that how much water has to be collected in the three days (of predicted rain).
There is software available to help decide these matters. Many institutions do have them. The most famous among them is the Danish Hydrological Institute, which built the system for Bhakra-Nangal. I had been part of that project aided by the World Bank.
Kerala, I reiterate, has small rivers. That makes it easy for the state to install such systems.
The IMD’s Pune office has begun developing a system to analyse climate change. Next year’s report by the intergovernmental panel on climate change will have contributions from the IMD as well.
It will project India’s climate in 2030 and even 20 years later. It will speak on the climatic changes in various states of the country, and also throw light on the factors behind them.
It will even analyse how climatic changes happen after every 50-sqare-kilometre area; the study at such micro level. We will be taking steps based on its findings.
Role of humans in climate change
There is a famous statement from (late) geography professor Gilbert F White of the University of Colorado: Floods are ‘acts of God’, but flood losses are largely acts of man. Management of dams is important. Doing it can decrease dangers and entailing disasters. You can’t completely stop them, but we need to be more careful. We can’t check floods, when they are natural processes. But we can save fellow humans.
Nature doesn’t avenge. It’s only that we face the results of our cruelties to nature. Deforestation, for instance.
It changes the ecosystem if we fill water bodies and build houses and other buildings on them. Ecologically, Kerala is fragile. You cannot just be cutting trees because you have lots of them. Deforestation is what chiefly triggers landslides and slips.
True, it rained heavily in Kerala this time, but much of the soil would have been intact if the trees along the hills were not cut. Roots can hold the earth well. It’s huge trees you cut... ones that have roots strong enough to hold large masses of soil.
One has to also take into consideration the nature Kerala’s earth had gained by this August. It had already been raining heavily since June, so the soil was already saturated with water. The earth, too, has holding capacity. So, when it continued to rain, the earth just came crashing down. It’s just basic science.
Need for scientific approach
The truth is Kerala has never had a scientific approach to conserving nature. Successive governments seldom consulted experts on matters relating to climate or conceived management systems. Today, the chief minister has spoken the need for building a new Kerala.
Even that requires a system, a scientific approach. India has so many departments where experts can advise Kerala on the matters. The state must make use of them, their expertise. Rain and deluge will recur, they are natural.
All we can do, and we must do, is to minimize the destruction out of them. Kerala never expected this kind of a rain; it never had an experience of such a flood (in 94 years).
Kerala should have a system aiding it to take prompt decisions. Once the state has the capability to make the right predictions, it doesn’t matter whether such facilities existed in the past. So, there should be a positive change in the approach.
It should be scientific, too. Random thoughts converted into decisions and implemented may not harm us today, but definitely they will tomorrow. In foreign countries, when they say ‘sustained development’ they literally mean it. For us, it exists only in paper.
For a gain of Rs 50, we end up doing a harm that costs us Rs 500.
River interlinking is futile
Linking rivers is no solution to floods. If rising waters in one river has to be accommodated by another, the second one has to have the capacity. By water management, we mean an activity during non-monsoon months also.
That can only adversely affect the ecosystem of rivers. Rivers are like us humans, they have hands and legs. Only, they don’t speak. If you disturb their course, the effects will be seen. It can influence even the nature of rains in the region.
Manage dams well
Reservoirs per se aren’t harmful, but we need to manage them well. There have been criticisms against clearing forests and building dams.
Small check-dams help in the right use of water without wasting it. A city like, say, Jodhpur in Rajasthan has large ponds that are interconnected.
It has been so for some 500 years; it’s a traditional conservation system implemented by kings of those days. Jodhpur receives very less rains, yet the area doesn’t suffer from water shortage. Such large water-bodies also house buildings, checking quick evaporation.
Right intervention
In Kerala, district collectors must intervene efficiently to ensure percolation of IMD information down to the common people.
A good example of such a system is the Odisha government. They don’t even wait for the IMD’s weather forecast. They inquire with the IMD and collect information in advance so as to act promptly.
They have a specially effective system that functions during monsoons. It involves even the chief minister among top administrators.
The CM’s meetings on weather will be attended by senior bureaucrats, who feed their top boss with all crucial information. It’s not as if they wait for things to happen and then act.
The rains that Kerala got this time can again happen any time. There should be preparedness. Heavy rains have only become more frequent over the past decade.
It is incumbent on the government to make its people aware of conservation of nature. The public, too, has to respond with the seriousness the matter deserves.
The problem is that we don’t think much, and what little we do is only about just the near future. We have to begin thinking long-term. For that, we need to change our lifestyle.
Just knowledge isn’t enough, realisation is what really matters. We much sense what is right, what is wrong. Get ready for that. The 2018 flood is just a shock treatment. We must take it as a lesson for the future.
