The 2018 flood also offers an opportunity to rethink on evolving new developmental models for the State that would take also vagaries of climate into account, says C. P. Rajendran, noted geo-scientist and Professor at the Geodynamics Unit of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research in Bengaluru.
Winner of the prestigious Ramanujan Fellowship for outstanding contributions to science and engineering, Prof. Rajendran suggested that its time for the State to implement an advanced environmental protection system.
Excerpts form an e-mail interview:
As we discuss ‘Re-build Kerala’, what should be our priorities and precautions on land use and development keeping in mind the lessons learnt from the devastating floods?
In the post-flood context, we hear a lot about rebuilding of Kerala, but there is not enough substantive discussion on what sort of development model the State should aspire for, particularly in the backdrop of global scale changes in the Earth system. Although Kerala on its own cannot be a major player in the mitigation of climate change, it can do a lot to reduce its impact locally. Most importantly, the State has to think seriously how its waterbodies (rivers, ponds, wells, remaining paddy fields and wetlands) can be saved from further encroachments and pollution. The wetlands by the way are excellent storage centres of carbon and helps to reduce carbon dioxide – a greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.
Equally importantly, Kerala has to evolve scientific conservation methods to save the forests and biodiversity in the Western Ghats, which is also subjected to encroachments mostly mediated through political network. That much of the recent controversies and scandals in the State are centred on the legalities of settlements in the hilly regions itself shows the seriousness of this problem. I think the political parties in Kerala, for the sake of a few additional votes, and manipulated by various business interests were short-sighted enough in rejecting the Gadgil Committee recommendations that gave a clear scientific route map of safeguarding the environmental stability and at the same time promoting ecosystem services in the Western Ghats, giving more power and participatory role for the local bodies and local residents to decide on such matters. The 2018 flood also offers an opportunity to rethink on evolving new development models for the State that would take also vagaries of climate, which have become a new norm, into account, and how to make human progress without triggering an ecological disaster. In the post-flood scenario, a most important issue is how to use the land in an environmentally friendly way. The land with its soil in Kerala is degrading fast and it is under acute pressure.
How can the State step up its monitoring for early warning signs, evaluating predictive models and building physical defences against such extreme weather conditions?
As for the floods that may recur, the State will have to develop more efficient warning and alert systems. What is surprising is that, despite having a set of government-funded scientific institutes, the State did not even have proper flood maps that could have assisted in sending out more precise alerts to the people. I am not sure if we still have a flood map for the current 2018 flood. All the major future decisions on land use should be based on such flood maps or for that matter, landslide-prone areas and regulate the new constructions accordingly.
Equally worrisome is the fact that very little scientific data is being collected on various phenomena that occurred during and after the flood. Despite the assertions of the Minister concerned, it is a fact that the dams in Kerala do not have ‘rule curves’ - the operating criteria, guidelines and specifications that govern the storage and release function of a reservoir that would be particularly useful during flood conditions. Proper flood and drought (too much and too little water) management is not possible without sustained monitoring of hydrological variables: stream flows, soil moisture, groundwater levels, water demand and withdrawals. These need to cover the short (hours to days), medium (weeks) and extended (seasons to years) timescales to ensure actions based on forecast information. I think the State-funded institutes concerned and the research wing under the KSEB should have trained people who are devoted to sustained collection of quality data of all those variables and archive them for future scientific use. We should also run more earthquake monitoring stations in and around Idukki and Mullaperiyar dams (and data should be made available to the researchers) and also conduct periodic stability tests in older dams. For coastal hazards like tsunami, a reliable prediction centre is built in Hyderabad. The Kerala government should put in more efforts to build a new dam in Mullaperiyar in the background of the 2018 flood.
Is it not time we take into account the impact of climate change while venturing on re-building Kerala not only for today but for the future?
While extreme rain events in India are on the rise with suggested intensification by the end of the century, the observations also indicate overall decline in mean rainfall due to weakening monsoon circulation, increasing frequency of El Niño events, accelerated air pollution and land use changes.
This juxtaposition of increased frequency of extreme rainfall events and overall decrease in mean rainfall suggests that the alternating spells of flood and drought events are going to be a permanent fixture in the Indian subcontinent. Kerala because of its geographical position within this system has to take the full brunt of these changes as the climate under global change regime is likely to see-saw between these extremes. The 2018 flood in Kerala is a study in itself as to how a climatic phenomenon spiralled into a huge environmental disaster. As the extreme climatic events are expected to recur the society needs to ponder over how to improve the readiness to meet such hazards.
Kerala has to think how to implement an advanced environmental protection system through the development of non-polluting high-tech industry, alternative energy sources, waste recycling, sustainable agricultural practices and a strong ecotourism industry supported by innovative legislation, linking conservation and reforestation, following a path as provided by green economics. Kerala society has to look at some of those alternative “degrowth” options more closely in their quest for the post-flood reconstruction that can set a new example for the entire country.