A statement that holds a lot of emotion during rainy season in India. You never know how much will it rain. Sometimes it pours, sometime it just gives a short peek and passes by for us to enjoy the rainbow. In India, power cuts, roads filled with water, unseen manholes are opened, people driving in hurry to reach their destination, couples in love sharing hot food to the sides of the road, people removing helmets to feel the strong connection to earth, some standing by for it to pass and many more.
As a bike rider, I enjoy driving during the time it rains. I don’t care if it pours or drizzles, there is something about that moment that holds me close to it. The smell of petrichor, the slow drive, the sound of rain hitting the skin, and music just makes this meal heavenly. The destination may not be fulfilling but it’s the journey that fills me with a sense of joy.
As a person, I connect with mother earth on a deeper level during rain. It gives me a feeling of belonging to a deeper purpose. Mother Earth causes rain to hydrate herself and add water to it’s lovely citizens. As a student, it’s my best bet if the college would be cancelled. The sound of rain on a Monday morning always lifts my spirits because I knew school/college would be cancelled. Now, the same rain helps me find peace from the worldly pains.
Explained : Although the monsoon season ends in September, a delayed withdrawal and other factors have been causing severe rainfall in several states.
Western disturbances, which begin to have significant interference in local weather over the extreme northern parts of India, commonly cause either rain or snowfall. Since late last week, Ladakh, the higher reaches of Kashmir and Uttarakhand have reported the season’s first snowfall.
Last week, two low-pressure systems were active simultaneously, one each over the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal regions. Collectively, these triggered severe weather events over Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Odisha and West Bengal.
Delayed monsoon withdrawal
The four-month southwest monsoon season normally withdraws completely by early October. During the withdrawal phase, it causes thunderstorms and localised heavy rainfall.
This year, however, the withdrawal began only on October 6 against a normal of September 17. So far, the monsoon has withdrawn completely from the Western, Northern, Central and Eastern India regions. But it remains active over the southern peninsula. Thus, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have had significant rainfall during the last 10 days.
Until Monday, the monsoon had not withdrawn from Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, parts of West Bengal and Odisha and entire southern peninsular India.
“As there has been a delay in the southwest monsoon withdrawal, good rainfall has continued over Odisha, the Northeast and south India,” said Mrutyunjay Mohaptra, director general, India Meteorological Department (IMD).
Normally, by mid-October, the monsoon winds reverse their direction of flow from the southwest to the northeast.
“Even though the easterlies are beginning to replace the westerlies, the former is yet strengthen and fully establish. The easterly winds indicate the arrival of the northeast monsoon,” said D Sivanand Pai, head, Climate Research and Services, IMD, Pune.
This year, conditions for the onset of the northeast monsoon are expected to develop around October 25.
Extreme rains
For most days last week, at least two low-pressure systems remained active along the east and west coasts and over central India, bringing rains over large parts of the country.
Delhi received 87.9mm (over a 24-hour period) between Sunday and Monday, making it the fourth wettest October day for the national capital since 1901. The month of October has also been the fourth wettest so far. It has received 94.6 mm rains this month so far, which is next only to the 238.2 mm it received in 1954, the 236.2 mm in 1956, and 186.9 mm in the entire Octobers of 1910.
Likewise, Balasore in Odisha recorded 210mm in a day and it was only the second such occasion in a decade for this month.
While Tamil Nadu normally receives good rainfall between October and December, mainly during the northeast monsoon, Coimbatore (110mm) witnessed its wettest October day in a decade even before the onset of the northeast monsoon.
The Western Ghats, northeast and central India are known as high-rainfall receiving regions. However, in recent years, it has been noted that intense spells during a short time span are increasingly becoming frequent.
“Due to climate change, there is definitely a rising frequency in the extreme weather events round the year. But these specific occurrences of heavy to very heavy rains that we are seeing right now can be attributed to the formation of low-pressure systems,” said Mohaptra.
“Whenever there is a low-pressure system, depending on its strength, it results in heavy to very heavy rainfall activity. In addition, when a low-pressure system interacts with western disturbance, further intense rainfall occurs,” he said.
Extreme rainfall in Kerala
A low-pressure system that formed in the east-central Arabian Sea moved and sustained over Kerala between October 15 and17.
Simultaneously, another low-pressure system prevailed over the north Andhra Pradesh coast and southern Odisha. The interaction between them strengthened the southwest winds which brought extreme rainfall over central and southern Kerala during the last weekend.
At some places in Idukki, Ernakulam, Kollam and Kottayam districts, the 24-hour rainfall was over 200 mm. As many of these districts are hilly and covered with dense forests, the water run-off triggered landslides and mudslides.
Rainy days ahead
The low-pressure system that affected Kerala has weakened now. But a similar system is still active over central India, because of which northern India is likely to received good rainfall this week.
Heavy rainfall events are predicted over Western Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh for Tuesday, with a ‘red’ alert having been issued by IMD for these regions.
Another low pressure — located over Northern Odisha and Gangetic West Bengal — is active and its interaction with the moist easterly winds from the Bay of Bengal is expected to bring heavy rain over West Bengal, Odisha, Sikkim, and Bihar until Wednesday. The maximum impact in terms of extremely heavy rain (more than 204 mm in 24 hours) is likely over some places in West Bengal and Sikkim on Tuesday.
Every year, monsoon season occurs in various parts of the world. It has been coming sooner in recent years, accompanied by rising amounts of rainfall, or later than normal, with a considerably drier start. While monsoon-affected nations plan for the monsoons on a yearly basis, the changes due to covid-19 are making it more difficult for them to respond without help.
Recently, the heavens have opened up in the highlands of north India and along the coasts of western India in the last ten days, unleashing severe weather phenomena. More than 150 people have died because of landslides and flash floods across Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, and parts of Karnataka. At least 53 people were killed when a hilltop collapsed south of the city in Raigad, Maharashtra’s hardest-hit district. The floods in Goa are the worst since 1982. The Indian monsoon is rapidly becoming known for its unpredictable behavior of the elements. However, the country’s weather forecasters, planners, and lawmakers have yet to accept climate change as a threat.
Most Indian cities, including Delhi and Mumbai, are ill-equipped to deal with such severe rains, with drainage systems blocked at many locations. The defense of city residents against weather oddities is jeopardized by urbanization that is uninformed by basic hydrological principles.
Farmers in several areas have discovered that rain is falling in torrents rather than being evenly distributed throughout the season, resulting in floods and erosion, followed by times of drought. Increasing automation, on the other hand, entails heavy machinery tamping down soil and producing rutting, all of which are detrimental to the orchard and vineyard floor. Furthermore, Aquifers that used to recharge groundwater and convey rainfall to bigger water bodies have been replaced by concrete in most cities.
Therefore, it is vital to tackle this problem as soon as possible because these disasters affect the poor in return. The scale of the devastation witnessed in the preceding examples, as well as what occurred in the Bay of Bengal last year, demonstrate a lack of disaster preparedness and mitigation, an issue that affects most of the country’s metropolitan areas.
We propose that the government develop long-term disaster management plans to reduce the impact of floods in Indian states. It is critical to enhance flood-forecasting techniques and install flood-warning systems in low-lying areas as a first step in this direction. Second, the government should devote greater resources to flood prevention, mitigation, and preparation. Third, river connection and the development of multifunctional structures and flood shelters in low-lying regions should be done on a mission-mode scale to assist minimize flood-related deaths. However, these methods will go a long way toward reducing and avoiding flood damage in Indian states. But its better to do something to prevent it all rather than sitting and watching the god’s show.
Scholars in development studies have written on these issues, but in ecologically vulnerable places, the political costs of altering the current development paradigm are frequently substantial. The Gadgil committee report on the Western Ghats, for example, which recommended for controlling development operations, was met with opposition in the region and largely ignored by mainstream political parties.
Indian monsoon, the most prominent of the world’s monsoon systems, which primarily affects India and its surrounding water bodies. It blows from the northeast during cooler months and reverses direction to blow from the southwest during the warmest months of the year. This process brings large amounts of rainfall to the region during June and July.
After meagre rains were received, Mumbai saw a downpour through the night and in the early hours of July 16th, leading to 27 roads being inundated, 85 bus routes diverted and 250 people evacuated from the Mithi River banks. Extremely heavy rain was recorded at the India Meteorological Department (IMD) Santacruz observatory at 253.3mm, which is the second highest 24-hour rainfall in a decade.
In 2019, the city had recorded 375.2mm which was the highest 24-hour rain in the months between 2015 and 2020. In 2018, it was 184.3mm, 163.4mm (2017), 114.5mm (2016) and 61 mm in 2015.
The meteorological department classifies 15.6-64.4mm in 24 hours as moderate rain; 64.5-115.5mm rain as heavy; 115.6-204.4mm as very heavy; and over 204.5mm as extremely heavy rain. Moderate to heavy rain is likely in the city and suburbs with the possibility of heavy to very heavy rain at isolated places, said the IMD.
The Extremely heavy rain left 27 city roads waterlogged— areas like Hind Mata, Gandhi Market, Sion Road number 24, Wadala Bridge, Chunabhatti, Siddharth Nagar in Goregaon, RCF, Chembur Phatak, Milan Subway, roads leading to eastern freeway. As per the BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation) data, between 4am to 7 am, the city recorded 36mm rainfall, 73mm in the western suburb and the highest 75mm in the eastern suburb of Mumbai.
The Mithi River crossed a dangerous mark following which so far about 250 people have been evacuated from Kranti Nagar slum which is located at the bank river. After the rains took a break following the evacuation of people, the water level of the river went down to 2 metres from 3.7 metres. After that, most of the evacuated people returned to their places. The IMD has predicted moderate rain in the city and suburbs with possibility of heavy rainfall at isolated places, the civic official said, adding that the city will witness high tide of 4.08 metres on Friday at 4.26 metres.
Meanwhile, the city of Hyderabad witnessed heavy rains on the night of July 14th, which went on till the next morning. According to the IMD, Hyderabad records, at 69mm, this day was the third rainiest July day for Hyderabad in the last 10 years. The city recorded 115.1mm of rain on July 21, 2012 followed by 86.4mm on July 12, 2013. It was after seven years that Hyderabad witnessed this kind of rain in 24 hrs.
Several localities in the city, including Hayathnagar, Uppal, Saroornagar and Saidabad received heavy rains overnight. Meanwhile, Bandlaguda, Uppal received the maximum rainfall of 212.5 mm, followed by Vanasthalipuram, which witnessed 192.3 mm rain. Kapra, Serilingampally, Khairatabad, Golconda and Marredpally also experienced moderate rains.
Several other districts including Rangareddy, Medchal-Malkajgiri, Yadadri-Bhuvanagiri, Jangaon, Rajanna Sircilla and Jagtial also received heavy rainfall. Chegunta in Medak received the highest rainfall of 227.5 mm on Wednesday. According to the forecast by Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), Hyderabad, the city will witness cloudy sky throughout the day, accompanied with light showers at isolated places.
Article by – Shishir Tripathi Intern at Hariyali Foundation In collaboration with Educational News
The Indian economy is basically an ‘Agrarian Economy’ that implies that most of the country’s working population depend upon agriculture for their livelihood. Relying upon the figures, it’s noticeable that almost 60-65% of the Indian workforce is engaged in agriculture. Being an occupation for such a large group of people in the country, agriculture in India still has a lot of problems and challenges in it.
The primary problem is the problem of irrigation. The villages and farms located near river banks and big canals are the ones who hardly face this problem of irrigation. As of June 25, 2019, nearly 65% of the country’s reservoirs were running dry. One of the worst affected areas has been the west-central state of Maharashtra, where six of the 17 reservoirs are dried out.
There are not just big farmers in the country of India. Here in India, there are tenants who work on the farms of others and those farmers too who have just a very small patch of land which they cultivate for their livelihood. Small farmers in India don’t have financial resources to get access to techniques like Drip Irrigation, availability of own tube wells, etc. Many a times, it happens that the farmers have to either take loans from moneylenders at high rates or just leave the farms parched.
The partial solution to the problem of water scarcity and the irrigation is Rainwater Harvesting. Rainwater Harvesting is simply the process of collection and storage of rain, rather than allowing it to run off freely into drains. Rainwater is collected from a roof-like surface and redirected to a tank, cistern, deep pit (well, shaft, or borehole), aquifer or a reservoir with percolation.
Now moving ahead from the ideal definition stated from Wikipedia, in reality people just have to go for a roof like system above their houses and the roofs of their dried tube wells. In this system of Rainwater harvesting, the water from the first rain showers is drained of and the rest of the water is collected. The water gets collected in a big tank throughout the rainy season and is used afterwards.
The rainwater being the purest form of water can even be used for purposes of drinking, cooking, bathing, etc. Some people collect the rainwater in underground built tanks of depth 10 -12 feet and in hotter regions like Rajasthan people collect rainwater in big rooms adjacent to the living rooms. As the water filled tanks (rooms) are just attached to the normal living rooms, it gets so cooler and pleasant in hot summers. Big tanks can be built later in future after seeing the amount of rain in the first year of trying rainwater harvesting. Farmers can use the same water for irrigation purposes too.
Though, some crops require more water but the technique of rainwater harvesting will really help the farmers to a very great extent. Government should think about providing some subsidies to the poor farmers for building some tanks like this for saving the precious rain water.
First of all it will be an ecofriendlytechnique and secondly a cost savingtechnique too. People living in the regions of North – East have adopted the similar technique for saving water. There are pipes built from bamboo that are used to supply water from one place to another. The tanks are built at the bottom of the hills; these are community tanks built by all the villagers together. The walls and the floors of the tanks are plastered with paddy husk to avoid seepage of water and later whenever the tank gets empty the soiland the silt at the base is usedasmanure by the farmers.
Similar Environment friendly techniques are needed to be promoted and implemented in other parts of India so that the farmers should not suffer from problems like scarcity of water. And also there should be techniques for the storage of water that gets logged in towns and villages. The same water should be treated and used for recharging the ground water resources which are getting empty by each passing day.
Therefore, the shift towards eco-friendly techniques like Rainwater Harvesting will give sustained prosperity in the field of Agriculture.
Heavy downpour leads to water logging, major traffic snarls
The India Meteorological Department has predicted heavy rainfall in central and eastern Indian parts.
Mumbai was lashed with intense rainfall last week, leaving multiple regions waterlogged. High tide hits Marine Drive in Mumbai as Mumbai’s civic body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) warns people to stay away from the coast.Almost every monsoon, Mumbai struggles to cope with the chaos caused by the rain. The suburban trains – the city’s lifeline – are affected and low-lying areas get flooded.
A fresh spell of heavy rains lashed the national capital on Tuesday, inundating low-lying areas and affecting traffic movement in parts of the city. The problem could be solved by fixing this but it needs an overhaul of the drainage system, which, according to experts cannot be done, unless there is more data, both on rainfall and drainage infrastructure. Over 40 locations in north Delhi got inundated due to the downpour, including areas in Mukherjee Nagar, Fateh Puri, Burari, Rohini, Narela and West Patel Nagar, according to the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC). Even a small downpour proved to be huge problem for Delhi as road got flooded resulting in traffic chaos and drown cars.
The summer showers in the state of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram are all set to gain momentum as the Kerala State Disaster Management Authority has sounded a yellow alert in nine districts for Sunday and Monday, followed by a warning of isolated heavy rains. The alert has been sounded in Kollam, Pathnamthitta, Alappuzha, Kottayam, Idukki, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad and Malappuram. Extremely heavy rainfall lashed Kerala disrupting normal life of every individual. Floods in certain part had worsened the situation.
he India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast heavy rainfall, thunderstorm and lightning in at least eight districts of Bihar, where more than 80 people were killed in several parts of the state. IMD had said earlier that a situation conducive for enhancing rainfall activities is likely to prevail over the foothills of the Himalayas along with Bihar-Nepal border and adjoining areas.Widespread rain after a gap causes more thunderstorm and lightning activity. Patna continue to wallow in a sea of misery as most localities remained flooded for a long time.
Heavy rainfall lashed north Bengal on Saturday, leading to flooding in low-lying areas, and the weather department issued a yellow warning for Himachal Pradesh for July 12 as the monsoon trough ran close to the foothills of the Himalayas passing eastward from Arunachal Pradesh to Punjab. Kolkata was too lashed by rainfall leading to traffic snarls in parts of the city.
Everything in excess proved to be dangerous, so stop playing out with nature.
India is a vast country where almost every year, many regions face drought, others flood while a very few get sufficient rainfall. Most parts of peninsular, central and northwest India regions most prone to periodic drought, receive less than 1,000 mm of rainfall.
The states falling within the periphery of “India Flood Prone Areas” are West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Assam, Bihar, Gujrat, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab. The intense monsoon rains from southwest causes rivers like Brahmaputra, Ganga, Yamuna etc. to swell their banks, which in turn floods the adjacent areas. Thus, few regions face heavy rainfall causing flood while others face meager rainfall resulting in drought.
The principal cause of drought may be attributed to the erratic behavior of the monsoon. The southwest monsoon, or ‘summer monsoon’ as it is called, has a stranglehold on agriculture, the Indian economy and, consequently, the livelihoods of a vast majority of the rural populace. The southwest monsoon denotes the rainfall received between the months of June and September and accounts for around 74% of the country’s rainfall.
In 2011, more than 60 people died and 4 million were affected by flooding in eastern India. India, being a peninsular country and surrounded by the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal, is quite prone to flood. As per the Geological Survey of India , the major flood prone areas of India cover almost 12.5% area of the country. Every year, flood, the most common disaster in India causes immense loss to the country’s property and lives.
Several traditional measures to control floods have been tried so far like building embankments to control the flow of river and constructing reservoirs to ensure release of water at a controlled rate. However experience has shown that these structural measures to control floods are negated by large scale deforestation that has taken place over the years in several parts of the country. Advancement in construction technology has also has had a negative impact on flood control as large scale construction activities have started to take place on the flood plains. Economic factors become more important and those who support the construction activity on the flood plain turn a blind eye to the disastrous impact it can have on the environment.
It has also been argued by some environmentalists that in order to control floods, the level of water in the reservoir of the dam should be kept at minimum level. However in order to generate hydro-electricity and bring more agricultural area under irrigation, the level of the water in the reservoir is kept high which leads to flooding in the upstream areas. Thus the measure that is often touted as a solution to the flood woes itself becomes a cause of it.
For instance, 2010 Delhi floods were caused by the release of water in Hathnikund Barrage in Haryana. Release of water was essential as storage above capacity may cause flash floods aggravating the crisis. Such projects are also necessary for irrigation and drinking water supply.
Hence it is high time for the government to look for ecological measures that can help in the management of floods on a durable, long-term basis. Afforestation of the flood plains must be encouraged as trees not only absorb rainfall water but also obstruct its flow to the rivers. Those living in flood plains for these activities should have an efficient early warning mechanism that ensures their evacuation before the calamity strikes. With the advancement in space technology that India has achieved, remote-sensing should be effectively used for prediction of rainfall and floods. It is only with these comprehensive and holistic measures that an efficient management of floods can be ensured in India with least damage to life and property.
Drought prone area should be made less vulnerable to drought associated problems through soil moisture conservation measures, water harvesting practices, the minimization of evaporation losses, and the development of the ground water potential and the transfer of surface water from surplus areas where feasible and appropriate. Pastures, forestry, or other modes of development, which are relatively less water demanding should be encouraged. Moreover, rainwater harvesting, micro-irrigation and modern irrigation facilities must be applied. In planning water resource development projects, the needs of drought-prone area should be given priority.
Thus, different regions of the country face drought and flood according to the geographical and climatic conditions and therefore, control measures should also be applied accordingly. Since no one can control the vagaries of monsoon, control and mitigation apparatus must be strengthened to minimize the effect of floods and droughts.
Eduindex News 
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