Is Odisha in the grip of climate change adversity? This looks apparent when for last three consecutive years, i.e., 2015 to 2017, the State keeps recording a condition of excessive to mildly dry even during the monsoon period of June to September. Moreover, the State has recorded wet conditions only during the cyclone or heavy flood years during the period 2009-2017.
Sample this: According to the available data with Met office, the Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) for the period of January to September in the State has been assigned an overall value of (-0.44), which in the Met parlance has been labelled as a mildly dry condition. But the worry is that as many as five districts have been categorised as severely/extremely dry and four more were put in the category of moderately dry.
Significantly, the 2017 state of dryness is not a one-off case in the State’s climate history. Interestingly, the said districts have been experiencing such dry condition since 2015. Also, the State as a whole has slipped into the mildly dry category for the full years of 2015, 2016 and till 2017 September. Baragarh, Balangir, Nuapada and Subarnapur are the districts that were mostly affected by moderately to severely dry condition for three consecutive years. And the districts like Mayurbhanj, Dhenkanal,
Angul, Baleswar and Jajpur have recorded moderately to mildly dry conditions for last three consecutive years. The State as a whole on average recorded a mildly dry condition for the three consecutive years.
The revelations, therefore, conclude to the fact that specified regions of the State like the western central table, undulating region and north-eastern coastal plain are consistently witnessing a drying condition indicating the work of climate change factors at work there, especially when these regions were experiencing worst heat waves during the summers of the last three years. For instance, the mean annual rainfall in the west central table zone consisting of Baragarh, Balangir, etc., has been around 1,614 mm, which has been the second highest mean rainfall in the State. But the very region is experiencing dryness since 2015 as the mean rainfall in monsoon period amounted to a mere 800-1,300 mm. The rainfall anomaly for the vast majority of the State in the 2017 monsoon based on the normal of the period 1950-2000 has been a whopping (-)50mm to (-)250mm.
Why climate change is blamed for because the State, including he west central table zone, during the period of 2009-2017 was in the category of wet only during the years of floods (2011) and cyclone (2013 and 2014). In this context, the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) norms that explain how a land when experiences extreme climates like flood, cyclone and harsh summer consistently being categorised as a test case of climate change adversity at work are being starkly witnessed in Odisha.
Notably, with a mere 25 per cent irrigation coverage, the obvious fallout then is also evident in Odisha as it being a rain-fed farming State, farmers’ suicide had been mostly reported from the very districts for the period 2009- 017.