Man-made floods

Reservoir management has failed, yet again

Unlike earthquakes, which can neither be predicted nor prevented, floods are both predictable and, to a large extent, preventable. The country has an elaborate, country-wide flood warning system in place, with two well-equipped central agencies — the India Meteorological Department (IMD) and the Central Water Commission — charged with this task. Despite this, the receding monsoon has caused devastating floods in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, killing hundreds of people and rendering several million homeless. Heavy precipitation alone cannot be held responsible for this, because this seems to be a case of multi-agency failure. Water inflows into dams were allowed to rise unabated till they became unmanageable and required to be released, regardless of the fact that the entire region was being pounded by an incessant monsoon downpour at the time. The blame for this rests on the managements of the water reservoirs, who mistimed the release of water.

The lack of coordination between the project authorities of water barrages on the River Krishna that runs across this region was the second problem. The water level in the massive Srisailam reservoir rose to 896 feet, unprecedented in the dam’s history, whereas its designed capacity is only 885 feet. The floodgates should, obviously, have been opened when the level was approaching the dam’s full capacity and not when it had overshot its limit. Worse, water from the Almati and Narayanpur dams in the Krishna basin in Karnataka was discharged into the Srisailam reservoir, thus aggravating the situation. The outflows from the Srisailam dam then reached the Nagarjuna Sagar dam which, in turn, directed the excess water to the Prakasam barrage, the last project on the Krishna before it reaches the sea. However, excessive releases from Prakasam inundated vast areas in and around Vijayawada, the financial hub of Andhra Pradesh, before flowing into the sea. Such mismanagement of water stocks and lack of coordination in water releases need to be investigated in order to ensure accountability. Even more important is to learn from this experience and improve operating procedures.

The average annual damage caused by floods is reckoned at a whopping Rs 1,376 crore through the loss of crops, property and public utilities, besides 1,560 human lives and 91,555 heads of cattle. This year, the loss may be much greater. Though it might be argued that the loss of crops on account of floods is usually compensated for by good subsequent crops because of the soil moisture and silt left behind by floods in their trail, the other losses take years to redeem. A country like India can ill-afford such huge deprivation year after year. There is an obvious need to improve the ability to predict rainfall and floods, and to facilitate the timely initiation of damage mitigation measures. There is also need for revisiting the guidelines for disaster management preparedness issued under the Disaster Management Act, 2005. Though all states have been advised to set up disaster response forces, on the lines of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Andhra Pradesh regretfully is among those which have not done so.