Kerala’s floods require a local set of responses

At least 25 people have lost their lives in Kerala’s floods that took on alarming proportions over the weekend. Triggered by heavy rains in the south-west tip of the Indian peninsula, the inundation has revived memories of a deluge in 2018 that claimed more than 400 lives and laid much property to waste. This time, too, people and homes have been swept away, vehicles as large as buses submerged and livelihoods taken apart by unruly waters, even as landslides wreaked havoc. Like last time, the most severely affected are those of limited means. Current evidence of the immediate cause points to a cloudburst, a concentrated downpour with enough force to loosen hillside earth and send chunks tumbling. Given the coastal state’s terrain, with the windward slopes of its Western Ghats forcing monsoon clouds upwards to squeeze out rainwater, intense precipitation is not unusual in Kerala. Yet, frequent extremes of it should refocus attention on the man-made aspects of such weather events—and hasten remedial action.

Globally, climate change is the prime suspect in almost all such occurrences. For one, the correlation of floods with rising temperatures now looks frighteningly clear. For another, scientific findings and theory have combined to indicate some causation. In general, extra warmth directly affects relative air-pressure and interferes with air-circulation patterns. A warmer atmosphere also holds more water, which in turn results in heavier rainfall. Experts have long warned of a tipping point after which rain cycles that have prevailed for millennia suddenly go haywire. Indeed, this is a red-alert crisis that lends urgency to the worldwide reduction of carbon emissions. Yet, the impact of greenhouse gases on the planet is only part of Kerala’s story. While air pollution must have played a role in what we’ve seen unfold over the past few days, we must not let the attribution of floods to a global phenomenon serve as a pretext to overlook local causes. In Kerala’s case, as in several Indian states, other forms of environmental degradation cannot escape blame.

Of the 44 rivers that drain Kerala of excess water, many end up in spate every monsoon season. While a loss of forest cover down the decades turned hillsides unstable, the use of concrete for construction has disrupted the state’s natural rainwater absorption and drainage system. Quarrying, mining and other such activities compounded the menace. Many check dams got silted up, leaving their reservoirs unable to restrain downhill gushes of water. These risks were flagged about a decade ago by a centrally-appointed panel on the ecological fragility of our Western Ghats. Headed by ecologist Madhav Gadgil, the committee had recommended measures to halt and reverse the damage, but they were implemented inadequately. Today, as Kerala struggles to cope with floodwaters, we must press ahead with relief provisions. Beyond that, we should reach for region-specific solutions that involve actions within the ambit of local administrative control. The challenge of flood mitigation is daunting, especially because we have a complex interplay of factors to deal with. Not only is it difficult to compartmentalize causes, we might be past a point of no-return on some of these. Still, it is incumbent upon us to accelerate our response to domestic dangers on the ground even as international talks on carbon-neutrality get set to suffuse the air at Glasgow. Kerala’s recurrent floods need a comprehensive plan of their own.