Lessons learnt & not learnt from floods in India – A case study

National Training Programme on

“Flood management”

27 April, 2016

ICED, Jaipur

Flood Management: Some basic facts• Floods are part of natural cycle of rivers and help it perform some key functions

• Floods are not always a disaster

• Floods cannot be totally eliminated

• Floods do not bring only water

• Floods do not imply surplus water

• Floods, forests and catchments, drainage

• When are the Floods are experienced as disaster?: Suddenness, speed, duration, intensity

• Flood management is more useful concept than flood control

• Flood management includes structural and non structural options

• Dams, embankments, and such other structural flood management options have costs, impacts and limitations

• Dams and embankments also lead to disasters when not maintained and operated properly

• Hydropower operations also can lead to flood disasters

• Flood forecasting, flood preparedness, disaster risk reduction are some non structural flood management options

• When do we invite flood disasters: How we treat the rivers, drainage, upstream infrastructure…

• Flood disasters also related to earthquakes, landslides, erosion

• Can ILR eliminate floods?

• India’s track record in flood management

• Climate Change is already worsening the flood disasters: increased frequency, intensity and nature of floods

• Living with the floods: How feasible it is.

• CAG & Flood management

Flood is not always disaster• Part of Natural cycle of rivers

• Helps rivers perform some key functions

• Nature of flood changes with structural changes

in the river/ drainage/ catchment

Floods cannot be totally eliminated

Floods do not bring only water

Floods do not imply surplus water

Floods, forests, catchments & drainage

When are the Floods are experienced as disaster?

• Suddenness

• Speed

• Duration

• intensity

Flood management is more useful concept than flood control

• Flood management includes structural and non

structural options

• Flood forecasting, early warning systems, flood

preparedness, flood plain zoning, River

Regulation Zone, disaster risk reduction are

some non structural flood management options

• Prevention is the best cure for flood disaster

(not floods)

How accurate and useful are CWC’s flood forecasts?• The claim about accuracy of CWC forecasts needs to be taken with riders.

Firstly, there has been no independent assessment about the accuracy or effectiveness of the forecasts. Secondly, it needs to be assessed how specific the forecasts are and if they are reaching in time to the concerned that are going to benefit from it, that is communities in the flood prone areas. Thirdly, it needs to be assessed how well the forecasts reflect ground realities. Fourthly, it needs to be checked how many of the floods were not forecast by the CWC, though they could have forecast the same.

• To give an instance of how divorced the CWC forecasts are from the ground realities, on Sept 15, 2006, CWC website made a forecast that Kamala Balan river near Jhanjharput in North Bihar is flowing at 49.33 m, above warning level of 49 m, hence as per CWC definition, a flood was forecast. Some newspapers uncritically published the forecast as facts, saying Kamala Balan is in floods. When a journalist in Delhi called up his brother in Jhanjharpur, he was told that the river had very little water there. It latter came to light that the warning level mark on the river at Jhanjharpur is submerged in sand. One hopes that not all forecasts of CWC are so divorced from realities.

• To give an instance of how CWC has not been able to forecast some of the recent floods, the floods in Narmada, Tapi, Mahi, Sabarmati basins in Gujarat in July-August 2006 were not forecast, though CWC should have, as it had all the information about the dams, river flows and river levels in these rivers.

River Basin friends: People driven flood forecasting• The River Basin Friends is a people’s network in which more than 300

organizations located along the GBM basin and more than 1000 people of different disciplines and locations of the basin areas are associated with. The network also circulates flood forecasting messages from its upstream location to the downstream locations. Though the CWC and Indian Meteorological Department give the flood forecasting messages to different agencies, departments and in their websites (http://www.india-water.com/ffs/index.htm), but the messages have regional context and the information are not sufficient for local level forecasting and the information can not reach to the people at the vulnerable locations. So River Basin Friends with its own initiative and support from the organizations and people in the network initiated a flood early warning mechanism which reaches to the people at downstream at Bangladesh. The central hub at Village Akajan in Dhemaji District of Assam collects information from different sources and peoples’ network in the up stream locations of river Brahmaputra and its major tributaries over phone and email. This information is then processed based on correlation of different background information, statistical and operational analyses. The final flood early warning messages are then formulated for different vulnerable locations in the areas and disseminated to these locations through different Medias.

• This has been going on quite effectively at least for the last three years. More in-depth study of this remarkable initiative needs to be done as it has the potential to provide lessons for many other communities.

Flood management: Structural options

• Dams, embankments, and such other structural

flood management options have costs, impacts

and limitations

• Dams and embankments also lead to disasters

when not maintained and operated properly

• Hydropower operations also can lead to flood

disasters

• Reservoir operation and flood management

– Cascade of reservoirs: Mah 2005

– Krishna basin 2009

Dams and floods• Every dam/ reservoir could theoretically be

helpful in flood management, and every

reservoir can also be source of avoidable flood

disaster

• Are dams the best option for flood

management?

• Role of existing dams

• Reservoir management Committee

• Info in public domain about each dam on daily

basis

NCF on Dams and Floods:• About operation of dams for flood protection, the NCF notes (p

112), “Most of the reservoirs completed in the country do not have any specific operation schedules for moderation of floods”. In the Ganga basin, while Kangsabati reservoir has an earmarked flood storage of about 28% of live storage, the report says, “As seen from W Bengal’s reply the Kangsabati reservoir has no operation rules drawn up so far, not have the moderation benefits been evaluated.” In case of Damodar dams, the report concludes, “the cumulative result of all these factors has been that despite the outflow, after the flood moderation having been reduced to 25% or even less than the inflow, even this causes flood in the lower basin. The problem becomes more acute when the release from the reservoirs synchronise with the runoff from the uncontrolled catchment.”

• Earlier the 3rd Report on State of India’s Environment (CSE 1991) had concluded, “Dams have become an important cause of floods.”

Surat flood disaster of Aug 2006Level at Ukai Dam

80

82

84

86

88

90

92

94

96

98

100

102

104

106

108

Date

Level (m

)

2006 2005 FRL-105.16 m MDDL-82.30 m

Ukai dam level and releasesDate time Inflows,

cusecs

Outflows,

cusecs

Water level,

m

Aug 5 0800 am 85 958 26 664 102.20

0800 pm 48554 23 640 102.26

Aug 6 0800 am 75 087 124 920 102.14

0800 pm 330 216 254 780 102.57

Aug 7 0800 am 853 679 409 004 103.46

0800 pm 1 072 680 816 036 104.22

Aug 8 0800 am 1 053 133 844 092 104.97

0800 pm 961 466 907 316 105.33

Aug 9 0800 am 856 000 850 000 105.34

0800 pm 711 757 650 000 105.38

The Mahanadi Floods in Sept 2008• A completely preventable, man made disaster.

• The Dam (with flood cushion in its design) was full

by Sept 17 when it should not have been full till

Oct 1

• At each stage the Rule curve was violated

• If Hirakud had not released water during Sept 17 to

Setp 21, there would have been no flood disaster,

since the flow at Mundali would have remained

below the safe limit of 10 lakh cusecs at all times

• But No engineer in India has ever been punished

for wrong operation of dams, the situation this year

would be no different.

In other countries Dam operators get sued:

• Yesterday there was news about how Texas

citizens have sued the Sabine River Authority

for Toledo Bend Reservoir dam operation in

March 2016 in US Court:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/ap

r/25/texas-and-louisiana-residents-sue-dam-

operator-ove/

• Earlier there were similar court cases over dam

operation in Australia.

• This is yet to happen in India.

Where would Haridwar, Rishikesh and Western UP

be but for Tehri Dam?

• Did Tehri save Haridwar, Rishikesh and other areas at all?

• No, the peak flood in Bhagirathi came before Alaknanda flood. So if Tehri were not there, the flood may have come to downstream areas a day earlier, but the peak would not have been higher than the levels reached in downstream on June 18.

• Tehri is at risk due to the impending earthquake

• In Sept 2010 Tehri created floods in the downstream

• Failure of CWC flood forecasting in UKD is also noteworthy.

• Now with Tehri almost full, it poses huge risk for downstream areas including Haridwar, Rishikesh, villages and western UP

Role of Climate Change• Himalayas facing higher temperature increase than global average; irregular

rainfall with more high intensity rainfall events, retreating glaciers increasing the possibilities of landslides and moraine flow into the rivers; increased frequency of flashfloods combined with landslides;

• Himalayan region is named as one of the 4 most vulnerable regions of India from CC perspective

• UKD is experiencing climate extremes for some years.

• This year: very early, very heavy, very widespread monsoon; 1356% rainfall across state in June 13-19 week; Role of Glaciers; Snow fall followed by rainfall; Cloud burst, flash floods

• Scientists are telling us that every weather extreme has CC impact. Secretary, Union Ministry of Earth Sciences accepted the CC impact in this event, but what are the implications? None so far? Vulnerable sections not even identified.

• NAPCC, National Mission on Sustainable Himalayan Ecosystem, UKD state APCC: Do we see any sign f these? Do we see any impact of these on environmental governance in UKD?

• GOI is certifying every hydro project applying for CDM credits as sustainable development everywhere, including Uttarakhand!

Lessons for Himalayan States• From J&K to Arunachal Pradesh, all Himalayan states have

more or less similar vulnerabilities like Uttarakhand:

• Landslide prone, flood prone, high intensity rainfalls, geological fault lines, seismic activity, glaciers and threat of GLOFs, livelihoods dependent on natural resources including forests and biodiversity, small proportion of cultivable land and increases vulnerability in changing climate

• We are going for massive hydropower developments and related infrastructure building in all these states without understanding the implications of this context and also doing project specific or basin wide impact assessments, including carrying capacity studies without having any credible compliance in place.

• We are inviting big disasters in all these states. Himachal, J&K, Sikkim, Arunchal and other NE states could be in the queue.

Embankments and floods• Embankments are essentially flood transfer mechanism

• No embankment is flood proof or breach proof: It will breach.

• How embankments creates need for more embankments, bigger, higher, stronger embankments

• Embankments design does not take into account the silt factor

• When it does not breach, those inside the embankment would like it to breach

• When it breaches: sudden, destructive, prolonged flooding: rivers finds the way back difficult; water logging, sand casting.

• Embankments create social conflicts:

• Embankments decision making process: No EIA, No EMP, no SIA, no R&R, no monitoring, no appraisal, no public consultations

How effective are embankments?• The report of the NCF (p 109) is quite categorical that no

credible assessment of performance of the embankments over any river has been done by any state. The commission notes, “Any assessment of the partial negation of these benefits, due to accumulated drainage water over the protected area from year to year, were also not done. The annual benefits from embankments were, therefore, by and large, a matter of overall opinion of some individual, with no supporting data. We were, therefore, reluctant to draw any conclusion from the trend of such opinions.”

• The W Bengal govt’s assessment is candid, “It is at best a temporary measure, where river water carries a heavy silt charge, the embankment by shutting off the spill areas on either side hastens raising of river bed with consequent rise in flood levels. This phenomenon creates potential danger of breach of embankments. A vicious race starts at that stage between the rise of the river bed and raising of the embankments in which the latter has not even a remote chance to win.” (NCF, p 108)

And what about these people…• Over a million people are trapped between the Kosi

embankments, they face the wrath of Kosi floods when the embankments do not breach, which is the case for 37 of last 45 years during 1963-2008 when the embankment and the barrage work were completed. There has been no just and proper rehabilitation for them till date. They are demanded that the breach not be repaired till justice is provided to them.

• Nearly 10,000 people trapped within the two embankment of the Kosi demonstrated on 20th October, 2008 before the Collector of Supaul for the step motherly treatment meted out to them for nearly 50 years. They are seeking justice and one of the demands that they are putting is not to plug the breach at Kusaha.

• If there is any disaster management in the country, the space between the Kosi embankments is the best place to try it out.

Can the Kosi High Dam Help?• It will be an invitation to Greater disaster: Silt, geology,

seismic issues

• No one says it is a permanent solution: They have all started saying “it is the only long term solution” without specifying the length of the long term…

• It is a flood transfer programme: From Bihar to Nepal: Why should Nepal accept this?

• Multi purpose project: Hydropower and water storage maximisation (Nepal’s interest) would work in contradiction with the flood control function (Bihar’s interest?)

• Experience with other dams with flood control function: Ukai (2006), Chandil (June 2008), Hirakud (1982, 2002, Sept 2008)…

Can Rail, roads, canals, cities increase flood risks?• About the impact of lack of proper drainage

incorporated by the development works like the railways, roads, urban development, industrial estates, embankments and canals, the NIC notes (p130), “these works have, sometimes, affected the flood problem… Also, the infiltration index or the amount of rainwater seeping into the ground has decreased due to occupation of the land by structural works and large-scale urbanization… This has also resulted in higher flood peaks.” After examining the responses of the various agencies involved in these developments, the NCF concludes (p 134), “it is apparent that there is considerable lack of coordination amongst the various departments undertaking the structural works. Even among the different departments of the same State itself, there is scope for more coordination.”

Transboundary floods• China to India: Sutlej and Siang

• Bhutan to India: Kurichu

• Nepal to India: Kosi 2008; UKD June 2013

• India Bangladesh

• India Pakistan

• Issue of information sharing

Arunachal Pradesh floods in June 2000• Arunachal Pradesh experienced flash floods during 11–12 June, 2000 in

Siang (Brahmaputra) river. Nearly 10,000 people are reported to be affected due to the floods. 26 persons died and three bridges namely Sagarm Bridge, Dite Dime bridge and Nubo bridge have been washed away. Four districts namely E Siang, Upper Siang, W Siang and Dibang Valley have been affected by the floods. As per information available this unprecedented flash flood was not due to rainfall in the Indian position i.e. Arunachal Pradesh catchment of Brahmaputra river but due to failure or breach of blockade in the upstream portion of Brahmaputra river in Tibet.

• Following these floods the matter was raised by External Affairs Minister with the Chinese Foreign Minister, Mr. Tang Jiaxuan, during his visit to India on July 21-22, 2000. External Affairs Minister proposed to the Chinese Foreign Minister that India and China could engage in a dialogue to examine ways in which human suffering could be reduced on the Indian side in event of such natural disasters.

• An Indian delegation from the Ministry of Water Resources visited Beijing on June 8, 2001. The Indian side stressed the need for sharing the hydrological data on both the Brahmaputra and the Sutlej on a year round basis to reduce the human suffering on our side in the event of natural disasters. The Chinese side proposed provision of rainfall, water level and discharge data on the Brahmaputra during the flood season. (Union Water Resources Minister in LS 09082000, 300701)

When do we invite flood disasters• How we treat the rivers, drainage, upstream

infrastructure…

• How we operate and maintain dams,

embankments, hydropower projects,

catchments

• How we treat river bed, flood plains, rivers,

wetlands, catchments

Flood disasters and earthquakes, landslides, erosion

• Earthquakes

• Landslides

• Erosion

• Cascading disasters

Urban Flood disasters

• Mumbai 2005

• Surat: 2006

• Srinagar: 2014

• Chennai 2015

Can ILR help eliminate floods?• President of India in his address to the nation on Aug 14, 2005 said, “I feel that it (ILR) has the promise of

freeing the country from the endless cycle of floods and droughts.” It is claimed that ILR would save 40 m ha area and 260 m people from floods and lead to avoiding damages of Rs 2400 crore/ year. It may be noted that total flood prone area of India 40 m ha.

• There are serious doubts about these claims. For example, ILR proposals imply that at the most, the link canals from Brahmaputra basin can have capacity of 1500 cumecs and that from Ganga basin can have capacity of 1000 cumecs. However, at its peak, Brahmaputra basin can have floods of 60 000 cumecs and Ganga basin 50 000 cumecs. Thus the ILR can reduce the flood peak by just around 2.5 %. Moreover, it needs to be noted that when Brahmaputra is in floods, Ganga basin is also in floods or have high water flows, so it is questionable why should the Ganga basin states accept more water from outside the basin when Ganga basin itself is in floods. Ganga basin states like Bihar and W Bengal and many of the significant organisations in Assam in Brahmaputra basin have also expressed their opposition to the project. Bangladesh and Nepal have also expressed serious apprehensions about the project. Union of India as of now has said that they would focus on the peninsular component, implying that the Himalayan proposals won’t be taken up in near future. However, many of the peninsular links are not viable without some of the Himalayan links.

• Dr. Bharat Singh, Professor Emeritus at the Water Resources Development Training Centre at the IIT, Rourkee, and Member of the National Commission for Integrated Water Resources Development Plan (1996-99), has said, “Any water resources engineer will immediately discard the idea of the inter-linking of rivers as a flood control measure”.

• John Briscoe, Senior Water Resources Expert of the World Bank has said, "River linking per se will do little to reduce flood damage since the size of the link canals would usually be miniscule compared to flood flows."

• The Report of the Govt of India’s National Commission for Integrated Water Resources Development (Sept 1999) concludes, “The Himalayan Component data are not freely available but on basis of published information it appears that this component may not be feasible for the period of review up to the year 2050… the costs of construction and environmental problems would be enormous. These links should only be taken up if and when they are considered unavoidable in national interest.”

• About Inter basin transfer (that is what ILR proposals essentially are about), the NCF says (p 89), “This method is not economically feasible except in cases of small streams and where the watersheds are separated by flat ridges”. The ILR proposals are not about small streams, nor are the concerned watersheds separated by flat ridges.

• From all accounts it is clear that the flood control claims of the ILR proposals are on shaky foundations.

Flood prone area is going up!Sr No State Area prone to floods (m ha) as assessed by

NCF (1980) 10th Plan working Group

1 Main Ganga Basin states: Bihar 4.26 6.88

2 UP 7.34 7.34

3 W Bengal (partly in Brahmaputra basin) 2.65 3.77

4 Brahmaputra basin/ NE states

Arunachal Pradesh

- 0.12

5 Assam 3.15 3.82

6 Manipur 0.08 0.08

7 Meghalaya 0.02 0.10

8 Mizoram - 0.05

9 Nagaland - 0.01

10 Sikkim - 0.02

11 Tripura 0.33 0.33

Flood management & Climate Change

• Climate Change is already worsening the flood disasters: increased frequency, intensity and nature of floods

• Landslide dams

• GLOFs

• UKD in June 2013

• Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar has admitted that there is a rise in the frequency and intensity of extreme rainfall events in the last 40-50 years in India, but doesn’t think the phenomenon is linked with climate change. He was responding to a query raised in Parliament on April 25, 2016.

Living with the floods: How feasible it is?

CAG Audits: cases of a good & not so good one• 2013 Performance Audit of Bihar Flood Management: Inadequate

knowledge base: Did not look at the knowledge base outside government

• It ends up repeating the recommendations of GFCC (GOI): build high dams in Nepal to trap the silt, at Barah Kshetra and on the tributaries of the river Kosi, a reservoir with adequate flood cushion at Noonthore on the Bagmati river, three dams over the river Gandak and a multipurpose reservoir at Chisapani on the river Kamla Balan…

• There is no mention of reasons for massive floods in the year 2008 following the breach in Kosi embankment at Kusaha. The audit fails to go indepth into how improper maintenance of the embankment lead to this flood disaster, who were responsible for improper maintenance and what system is needed to ensure such blunders are not repeated in future

• The audit could have also gone into the role played by GFCC, Kosi High Level Committee and others in the Aug 2008 Kosi flood disaster. The audit continues to display an understanding that looks at more and more embankments straight jacketing the river, or unproved technological remedies such as Intra Linking of Rivers as potential solutions

• The audit should also have looked at the usefulness of CWC’s flood forecasting.

• Audit of J&K 2011 National Lake Conservation Program This Audit rightly raised the importance of lakes how the Dal lake in Srinagar is badly managed.

UP Audit of 2015• 1, Flood control works, mainly anti-erosion works, were planned without

conducting any detailed and holistic hydrological and morphological studies, which led to execution of anti-erosion works repeatedly on the same/ adjacent sites.

• 2, Execution of projects was deficient as only 341 projects out of 805 projects, approved by steering committee were taken up (i.e. 42 percent). Test check of records in 11 districts revealed that 69 percent of projects were incomplete for more than 11 years from the date of sanction of the projects.

• 3, Technical specifications and norms were not strictly followed. Contract management was inadequate as 52 percent contracts on nomination basis were executed without tendering.

• 4, The department did not evolve the prescribed mechanism of carrying tests for materials like soil and geo-textiles, which led to untested materials being used in construction works.

• 5, The department did not build capacity for flood management by imparting training to the officers/ staff. New technologies such as Digital Elevation Models, Very Small Aperture Terminal System for automatic receipt of online flood information, preparation of hazard zonations and inundation maps were not adopted.

• 6, The monitoring mechanism was inadequate and unable to monitor the execution of flood control works as vital informations such as progress of execution of ongoing works, structure wise details of executed works with initial costs, cost of subsequent modifications etc were not available.

Anti Erosion work executed without

assessing impacts

CAG and flood management

• Issue of accountability of:

– CWC

– Dam operators

– Embankment maintenance

– Disaster management mechanism

– Flood forecasting mechanism

– The design of and information dissemination

system of flood forecasting

– IMD

– Water resources department

– Catchment management

4/27/2016

South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and Peoplewww.sandrp.in, www.facebook.com/sandrp.in

http://sandrp.wordpress.com/

ht.sandrp@gmail.com

Thank You!