For the second time in two years, parts of the Nilgiris witnessed intense, incessant rains for five consecutive days, leading to flooding and landslips in multiple places.
Scientists say such “extreme climate events” could be linked to climate change, and fear such events could become more common in the coming years.
K. Kannan, Head of the Indian Institute of Soil and Water Conservation (IISWC) in Udhagamandalam, said that last year and this year, there had been “deficient” rainfall from the south-west monsoon till the end of July. “Usually, the Nilgiris receives an average rainfall of around 620 mm during monsoon, but in 2019, there was a 60 % shortfall till the end of July. In 2020, there was a shortfall of 40 %,” he said.
However, since 2019, these periods of shortfall were followed by a phase of intense rainfall in the beginning of August, said Dr. Kannan, who believed that climate change could be contributing to the erratic climate patterns, especially the monsoons.
Gokul Halan, additional co-ordinator at the Keystone Foundation in Kotagiri, which has been working on understanding climate change and natural disasters in the region, said extreme weather events were being witnessed more frequently across the Western Ghats. “These events seem to be linked to a combination of factors, with climate change also playing a part,” he said.
Mr. Halan said that in order to better understand the reasons for the erratic climate patterns witnessed over the last few years, there was a need for better instrumentation that could give real-time data on rainfall and the weather. This would help develop more accurate climate models. There was also a need for early-warning systems to prevent damage to infrastructure and loss of lives owing to extreme climate events.
Nilgiris-based environmentalist N. Mohanraj said the region should prepare for more intense rains in the coming years.
“Last year, even Shola-grassland ecosystems, such as the one in Avalanche, were unable to cope with the extreme amount of rains that led to many landslips in the region,” he said.
“We can easily develop climate models that can predict where floods will occur, and shift people away from flood plains, while also coming up with infrastructure that will provide better drainage in areas that are affected the most during rains,” he said.
Restoration ecologist Godwin Vasanth Bosco said climate change would lead to more extremities in the future, such as high-intensity rains and droughts.
“We need to ensure ecological security by expanding the range of native flora, especially grasslands, as these will serve as a means of mitigating the impact of some of these catastrophic climate events,” he said. The government should not sanction any large-scale development projects as these could lead to slope destabilisation and increase the risk of landslips in the region, he said.