{"id":124305,"date":"2021-08-07T19:28:38","date_gmt":"2021-08-07T13:58:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=124305"},"modified":"2021-08-11T17:32:42","modified_gmt":"2021-08-11T12:02:42","slug":"widen-met-station-network-in-himalayas-to-better-predict-extreme-weather-panel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/widen-met-station-network-in-himalayas-to-better-predict-extreme-weather-panel\/","title":{"rendered":"Widen met station network in Himalayas to better predict extreme weather: Panel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Source<\/strong>: <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.downtoearth.org.in\/news\/climate-change\/widen-met-station-network-in-himalayas-to-better-predict-extreme-weather-panel-78337\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Down to Earth<\/a>, <a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.downtoearth.org.in\/news\/natural-disasters\/floods-heavy-rains-killed-a-lakh-people-in-65-years-caused-loss-of-rs-4-lakh-crore-78340\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Down to Earth 2<\/a>, <a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.downtoearth.org.in\/news\/natural-disasters\/no-provision-to-declare-any-natural-disaster-as-a-national-calamity-panel-report-78339\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Down to Earth 3<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance<\/strong>: Fighting the flood problem in India<\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong> Standing Committee of Parliament (Water Resources) presented its report in both the houses. A detailed look at its findings and the recommendations made.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Context<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>The report of the Standing Committee of Parliament (Water Resources) for the 17<sup>th<\/sup> Lok Sabha, was presented in both houses.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Findings of the report<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>Here is a brief list of the findings:<\/p>\n<p><strong>1]. Impact of Flooding: <\/strong>According to the report of the <strong>Standing Committee of Parliament (Water Resources)<\/strong> for the 17th Lok Sabha,<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Flooding has affected approximately 40 million hectares of India\u2019s land area.<\/li>\n<li>From 1953-2018, 109,374 people died as a result of floods and heavy rains in the country.<\/li>\n<li>During these 65 years, the country is estimated to have lost Rs 400,097 crore.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>2]. Reasons for flood disasters: <\/strong>Every year, floods caused enormous losses due to<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Poor planning<\/li>\n<li>Failure of flood control policies:\u00a0For instance, flood plain zoning mandated as per the Model Bill of Flood Plain Zoning Act is yet to be implemented in many states.<\/li>\n<li>Insufficient preparedness<\/li>\n<li>Ineffective disaster management<\/li>\n<li>Unpredictable rainfall patterns due to rising temperature. For instance, flooding of the Kedarnath Valley during the Uttarakhand floods due to extreme precipitation in a short span of time.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Natural Events: <\/strong>Flash floods, glacial lake outbursts and landslides. For instance, the <strong>Parechu river<\/strong>, a left bank tributary of the Spiti river was blocked in Tibet due to a landslide. It resulted in the creation of an artificial lake upstream and accumulation of huge volumes of water<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>3]. Declaring a flood as a national calamity: <\/strong>States have often demanded natural calamities to be declared as national ones, especially after floods in a region.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>But surprisingly, under the existing Scheme of <strong>State Disaster Response Fund<\/strong> \/ <strong>National Response Fund <\/strong>of the Ministry of Home Affairs, there is <strong>no provision <\/strong>to declare any disaster including flood as a National Calamity.<\/li>\n<li>The reasoning behind this is, it is <strong>not practical and economically feasible<\/strong> to provide complete protection to all flood-affected areas. Therefore, reasonable economic security is given to reduce the damage caused by floods.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<table style=\"height: 28px; width: 100%; border-collapse: collapse; background-color: #f7f2f2;\">\n<tbody>\n<tr style=\"height: 28px;\">\n<td style=\"width: 100%; height: 28px;\"><strong>Must Read<\/strong>: <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/india-nepal-flood-management-needs-course-correction\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">India-Nepal flood management needs course correction<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h5><b>Recommendations<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><strong>1]. Collaborative approach<\/strong>: All stakeholders (Centre &amp; State) needed to understand that managing floods was their collective responsibility.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2]. Changes in Administrative structure<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Make Jal Shakti ministry the in charge of flood management in India<\/strong>: Because, it appeared that the responsibility of flood management lay with everyone and hence no one paid attention to it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Set up a permanent body<\/strong>: Centre should form a permanent National Integrated Flood Management Group chaired by the Minister of Jal Shakti and at least one meeting be held each year.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Centre govt should take up responsibility<\/strong>: Central govt should take the responsibility of flood control and coordination, keeping in view the loss of life and property due to floods.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>3]. Policy implementation<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Standing Committee also requested that the <strong>Dam Safety Bill<\/strong> and <strong>the River Basin Management Bill<\/strong> be passed as soon as possible and that the existing Disaster Management Act of 2005 be properly implemented.<\/li>\n<li>The committee also proposed developing an <strong>Integrated River Basin Management Plan<\/strong> involving all flood-affected states as well as neighboring countries, in order to manage the water of neighboring countries.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>4]. Flood mitigation<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Centre should put in place and strengthen <strong>weather forecasting technology<\/strong> to warn about cloudbursts, flash floods and glacial lakes.<\/li>\n<li>Centre should make efforts to set up and widen the <strong>network of high altitude meteorological and discharge stations<\/strong> to keep track of changes in water bodies in the Himalayas. Such stations should be equipped with modern technology, including <strong>synthetic aperture radar imagery,<\/strong> to detect new lake formations and watersheds in the Indian Himalayas.<\/li>\n<li>Early warning without early communication and early action was useless. We need <strong>all-weather communication systems.<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Community radio<\/strong> is an excellent way to do this in the Himalayas<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Down to Earth, Down to Earth 2, Down to Earth 3 Relevance: Fighting the flood problem in India Synopsis: Standing Committee of Parliament (Water Resources) presented its report in both the houses. A detailed look at its findings and the recommendations made. Context The report of the Standing Committee of Parliament (Water Resources) for&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/widen-met-station-network-in-himalayas-to-better-predict-extreme-weather-panel\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Widen met station network in Himalayas to better predict extreme weather: Panel<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10316,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,4182,9],"tags":[411,8938,8756,216,274,8966],"class_list":["post-124305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-environment","category-public","tag-disaster-management","tag-flood-management","tag-floods-in-india","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-reports","tag-standing-committee-of-parliament-water-resources","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704711129},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}