Preview

Floods in India

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
587 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Floods in India
About floods in India

India, being a peninsular country and surrounded by the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal, is quite prone to flood. As per the Geological Survey of India (GSI), the major flood prone areas of India cover almost 12.5% area of the country.

Every year, flood, the most common disaster in India causes immense loss to the country's property and lives.

India Flood Prone Areas

The states falling within the periphery of "India Flood Prone Areas" are West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Assam, Bihar, Gujrat, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab. The intense monsoon rains from southwest causes rivers like Brahmaputra, Ganga, Yamuna etc. to swell their banks, which in turn floods the adjacent areas.

Over the past few decades, central India has become familiar with precipitation events like torrential rains and flash floods. The major flood prone areas in India are the river banks and deltas of Ravi, Yamuna-Sahibi, Gandak, Sutlej, Ganga, Ghaggar, Kosi, Teesta, Brahmaputra, Mahanadi, Mahananda, Damodar, Godavari, Mayurakshi, Sabarmati and their tributaries.

An over-view about state-wise flood prone areas can be gained by checking the following table

| state-wise Flood Prone Areas | |

State | Area liable to Floods (million Ha.) | Uttar Pradesh | 7.336 | Bihar | 4.26 | Punjab | 3.7 | Rajasthan | 3.26 | Assam | 3.15 | West Bengal | 2.65 | Haryana | 2.35 | Orissa | 1.4 | Andhra Pradesh | 1.39 | Gujarat | 1.39 | Kerala | 0.87 | Tamil Nadu | 0.45 | Tripura | 0.33 | Madhya Pradesh | 0.26 | Himachal Pradesh | 0.23 | Maharashtra | 0.23 | Jammu & Kashmir | 0.08 | Manipur | 0.08 | Delhi | 0.05 | Karnataka | 0.02 | Meghalaya | 0.02 | Pondichery | 0.01 | Total | 33.516 |

Highest flood prone areas in India

Though the north-Indian plains prone to flood more, the "India flood prone areas" can be broadly categorized in three divisions:
Besides the Ganga, rivers like

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Geographic Factors Dbq

    • 1070 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Monsoons are one uncontrollable geographic factor that plays a huge role on the outcome of the world’s living conditions and adaptations. A monsoon is a seasonal prevailing wind that blows for a whole season in the region of the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Every summer, southern Asia and India, is drenched by rain that comes from these moist air masses. It is difficult to fully adapt to and understand the works of a monsoon due to its variation of strength and intensity from year to year. On a year with less hydration, crops suffer due to their dependence for a certain amount of water. On a year with more rainfall, crops drown from the flooding results of the monsoon. Crops are not the only aspect being affected by these floods. The other conclusions were shown and written by Priit J. Vesilind in a National Geographic, “Last year [1983] the city lay under water mixed sewage, rotting grain, and floating carcasses of dead animals. Elsewhere in the state flash floods swept away a locomotive and three railcars.” (doc.6a) Destruction and harsh living conditions is what the people of Varanasi faced in 1983. Shown in the photograph by Steve McCurry in the National Geographic, this city is adapting to these circumstances by means of transportation. Limited transportation meant a modification in trade. In the book, The World That Trade Created, M. E. Shapre discusses this problem, “All across maritime Asia—from Canton…

    • 1070 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the major needs for management in areas with river basins is to reduce the flood risk, especially in LICs such as Bangladesh where urbanisation and global warming has increased the flood risk exponentially. The flood risk has increased due to high levels of glacial melt water which has increased due to global warming melting the Himalayas at a faster rate. Perhaps the biggest cause is due to the population growth of migrants going to Dhaka for work (over 1 million people move to Dhaka every year), this has meant that urbanisation and deforestation is taking place to cater for all the people. Urbanisation has increased the surface run off, making the surface impermeable and increasing the amount reaching the river channels. Deforestation has also reduced interception so more water is reaching the surface once again increasing surface run off, roots also bind soil and help keep the soil broken up to allow infiltration, which is not being able to occur as much with the reduced the number of trees. There are over 1000 schools in the area, over 30 millions people depend on the river for their livelihood, and fishing contributes to over 73% of rural residents, which shows how important protecting the…

    • 1319 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Torrential rains have killed more than 1,000 people in South Asia since the monsoon began in June, mainly in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh, where 725 people have lost their lives. Other deaths were reported from Nepal and Bangladesh.…

    • 2394 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Many of the main tributaries feeding into the Indus River were also flooded, further inundating agricultural lands. In total, some 20 million people were displaced and 50,000 square km were submerged, while standing crops, infrastructure and land were damaged extensively.…

    • 1302 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    * India can be divided into three main topographic regions: Himalayan Mountain systems on the north, Ganges, and Brahmaputra rivers in central India; and Peninsular India of the South.…

    • 1931 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    An estimated 13-30 million people could be displaced from their homes by permanent flooding and the total annual rice crop is likely to fall by at least 30% because of loss of land. This can lead to mass migration of people into northeast India and there is likely to be increased international tension between the two countries, in addition to internal political instability. This could lead to huge scale poverty increasing and also the outbreak of disease…

    • 434 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Essay on Monsoon

    • 780 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Regional variation in rainfall across India. The monsoon season delivers four-fifths of the country's precipitation.…

    • 780 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    How to Face Competitive Exam

    • 2053 Words
    • 15 Pages

    An assessment of one lakh students on various skills has found that only 34% were…

    • 2053 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    2/25/2015 Donation List | Aam Aadmi Party About Us News AAP Videos Mission Vistaar Delhi Elections Donate Enter email to stay in touch Go Donate Donation List Candidate List AAP Radio Donation…

    • 609 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Siddiqui

    • 710 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Bloomsday Outfitters produces t-Shirts for road races. They need to acquire some new stampings machines to produce 30,000 good T-Shirts per month.Their plant operates 200 hours per month,but the new machines will be used for T-shirts only 60% of the time and the output usually includes 5% that are “seconds” and unusable.The stamping operation takes 1 minute per T-shirt, and the stamping machines are expected to have 90% efficiency considering adjustments,changeover of patterns,and unavoidable downtime.How many stamping machines are required?…

    • 710 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Effect of Flood and Cyclone

    • 3124 Words
    • 13 Pages

    Bangladesh is prone to a variety of natural hazards. It has witnessed the havoc of some of the worst natural disasters of the world due to tropical cyclones and storm surges. Floods and local seasonal storms are annual events which cause loss of lives and damage to housing, agriculture and economy. The country is also exposed to the risk of earthquakes. There are other natural hazard concerns such as coastal erosion and sea level rise due to global warming, which have been in the limelight in recent years. Bangladesh is exposed to threat of hazards resulting from a number of natural disasters and remains classified as one the most vulnerable countries. Majority of the country is affected by cyclone, drought and floods. Bangladesh is prone to the natural disaster of flooding due to being situated on the Ganges Delta and the many tributaries flowing into the Bay of Bengal. The coastal flooding twinned with the bursting of Bangladesh's river banks is common and severely affects the landscape and Bangladeshi society. 75% of Bangladesh is less than 10m above sea level and 80% is flood plain, therefore rendering Bangladesh a nation very much at risk of further widespread damage despite its development. Whilst more permanent defenses, strengthened with reinforced concrete, are being built, many embankments are composed purely of soil and turf and made by local farmers. Flooding normally occurs during the monsoon season from June to September during the monsoon. The convectional rainfall of the monsoon is added to by relief rainfall caused by the Himalayas. Melt-water from the Himalayas is also a significant input and flood every year.…

    • 3124 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Flood Acton Plan

    • 1255 Words
    • 6 Pages

    | Flood Action Plan (FAP) an initiative to study the causes and nature of flood in Bangladesh and to prepare guidelines for controlling it. FAP was based on several earlier studies by UNDP, a French Engineering consortium, USAID and JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency). The FAP included 29 different components of which 11 were regional, with some pilot projects, and the rest were supporting studies on issues like Environment, Fisheries, Geographic Information System, Socio-economic studies, Topographic Mapping, River Survey, Flood Modelling, Flood Proofing, Flood Response, etc. The aim of the FAP is to set the foundation of a long-term programme for achieving a permanent and comprehensive solution to the flood problem.Known for centuries Bangladesh is a typical model of natural hazards. Some of the devastating natural hazards in Bangladesh are caused by floods, induced by the on-shore movement of cyclonic winds in coastal regions and excessive runoff water and rise in river water levels in flood plain areas. Coastal flooding associated with storm surges is always considered as a hazard irrespective of the scale of surges. This is because of the suddenness of the storm surges and the damages to lives and properties resulting from such events. Whereas, river floods in floodplain areas assume the proportion of hazards only according to the scale of the flood. Low (normal) floods are considered as a blessing because they contribute vital fertility (silt) and moisture to the land. Only an unusually high (abnormal) flood may cause widespread damage to lives, properties and crops. In the 19th century there were six major floods occurring in 1842, 1858, 1871, 1875, 1885, 1892. In the 20th century, including the catastrophic floods of 1987, 1988 and 1998, eighteen major floods have been recorded: 1900, 1902, 1907, 1918, 1922, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1970, 1971, 1974 and 1984. Prior to 1954, records of such floods…

    • 1255 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The main cause of the floods was unusually severe monsoon rains and an unusually high volume of runoff from melting snow from the snow caps of the Himalayas. These all increased the amount of surface water and the volume of water in Bangladesh's two main rivers, which are very large and connect. The Ganges and the Brahmaputra both had more than the normal amount of water that they could carry and so were overflowing and flooding.…

    • 850 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Bangladesh is not only one of the most densely populated countries in the world (with 926 persons per square kilometer) but also located in the world's largest delta, facing the Himalayas in the North, bordering India in the West, North and East, Myanmar in the Southeast, and the Bay of Bengal in the South. Its geographical position makes the country highly prone to natural disasters. Crisscrossed by two hundred thirty recognized rivers, each year about 30 per cent of the net cultivable land is flooded, while during severe floods, which occur every four to seven years, as much as 60 per cent of the country's net cultivable land is affected. Moreover, since the Bay of Bengal records the…

    • 2202 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    About Guwahati

    • 696 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Gauhati or Guwahati, the erstwhile capital of the state of Assam was earlier known as "Pragiyotishpura" (The Light of East). This city with a varied history dating back to the 6th century is also the most developed and important city of Assam.…

    • 696 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays