Flood, Not Disaster

Context:

In a short period of time, two floods devastated Assam. Approximately 31 districts, more than 2,000 villages, 7 lakh people, and 95,000 hectares of land were impacted during the height of the flooding.

Turning Crisis into opportunity:

• When the nation was experiencing the initial shocks of the COVID-19, the PM Narendra Modi addressed the nation with an aim to turn the crisis into an opportunity.
• In this hour of crisis it is important to turn the crisis into an opportunity, which means there requires a paradigm shift in the flood management system with a well-defined and restrictive pathway.

Paradigm shift in Flood management:

• Hazard prevention to minimization of disaster risk: Floods, fluvial and pluvial are triggered by the extreme weather events, but they transforms into a disaster by the anthropogenic factors. Thus, it becomes important to take the focus towards reducing the risk of turning into disaster.
• Addressing the underlying factors: Anthropogenic intervention shares a complex relation between biophysical and social vulnerability. In order disintegrate the relationship; the focus needs to be shifted from structural intervention and river engineering towards addressing the underlying factors that contributes to multiple dimensions of vulnerability.
• Focus on lives and livelihoods: Reducing the vulnerability and building people’s resilience requires inclusion of riparian population and their and livelihood at the centre of planning process of flood management.
• Convergence and integration of departments: The overall flood risk management strategy cannot be done only by water resource department; rather it includes convergence of various departments like, agricultural, animal husbandry and health etc.