Improper operations of dams, disasters related to dams and hydro projects and breaching of embankments have been aggravating flood disasters during every monsoon. There have been several such incidents during South West Monsoon 2020, taking heavy toll on people and property which could have been avoided or impacts reduced in many cases with proper dam operations and proper maintenance of the embankments. This compilation attempts to put together all such instances when avoidable flood disasters were created by improper operation of dams and breaching of embankments in the south west monsoon 2020.
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DRP: 2 Nov. 2020: Citizen Efforts to Save our Rivers
It’s heartening to see at least three citizen efforts that media has brought to limelight this week, two in Odisha and one from the banks of Godavari river in Nasik. Besides being citizen efforts, one common theme is that all these initiatives is that they concern rivers. Great news to celebrate in this festival season, also when India Rivers Week is also conducting weekly Dialogues on River sand mining.
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DRP: 26 Oct 2020: Why Floods is not big issue in Bihar elections?
Or may be it is a major issue at a number of places. Like in Kishanganj district along Mahananda river in North East Bihar, as the report here mentions. We hope it is. Since floods and how they are managed affect so fundamentally and in so many different ways so many people, it should be an election issue. Particularly when the incumbent Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is fighting to be voted in after being the Chief Minister of the state for 15 years since Nov 2005 (except brief ten month period in 2014-15).
15 years is long enough time to have been able to make at least some dent in flood management. On ground, the situation seems to have only gone worse. It was in this 15 year period that the unprecedented Kosi floods happened after the Kusaha breach in 2008. But the word unprecedented has been used for several more floods in these 15 years, including by Nitish Kumar. He also raised a number of pertinent issues in this period, including impact of Farakka barrage on Bihar floods, need for its decommissioning, Bihar’s right to get Ganga water from the headwaters in Uttarakhand [currently it gets none except during monsoon]. He is currently silent on these issues, but voters and media do not have to be silent.
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DRP: 12 Oct 2020: Why is India’s flood forecasting system ineffective?
This scholarly article shows why India’s flood forecasting system is ineffective. It is not location specific, provides too short a time, it does not provide the intensity of flooding, it is not comprehensive, there is no independent assessment. As far as dams are concerned, its performance is worst, and is unable to either expose wrong dam operations or take action against such operations. Its inflow forecasts are most of the time non existent. It makes numerous errors, but fails to correct them for long time. Its website is slow, sometimes totally non functional. It keeps changing the monitoring sites, their HFLs and provides neither consistency nor reasoning for many of its actions. In the middle of the monsoon it decided to curtail the hydrographs and information display system. Read on.
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DRP: 5 Oct 2020: Nominations Invited for the 2020 Bhagirath Prayas Samman & Anupam Misra Medal
INDIA RIVERS WEEK 2020 invites Nominations for the Bhagirath Prayas Samman (BPS) and Anupam Misra Medal.BPS was constituted in 2014 with Late Shri Ramaswamy Iyer as the Chair of Jury. BPS aims to recognize the unsung heroes for their outstanding and sustained efforts towards protection and conservation of rivers. Shri Anupam Mishra Memorial Medal (AMM) constituted in 2017 aims to celebrate journalists and media professionals who have established an exceptional body of credible work on various aspects of rivers leading to changes in behaviour, public discourse, law and policy. Based on well defined criteria, the Jury of the BPS & AMM selects the awardees. Nomination forms can be submitted to any of the following e-mail addresses: indiariversweek2014@gmail.com or mpuri@wwfindia.net, with the subject line: BPS/ AMM 2020 Nomination. The last date for the submission of nominations is October 25, 2020. Forms are available at: https://indiariversforum.org/nominations-open-for-bps-amm-awards-india-rivers-week-2020/
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Rivers That Reached New Highest Flood Level during Monsoon 2020
Flooding in Madhya Pradesh, late August 2020. Photo: MP Govt., flood list.
In 2020, south west monsoon season when rainfall was 8.74% above normal, rivers reached new Highest Flood Levels (HFLs) at least at 37 locations across the country, as per information available to SANDRP. Maximum 13 such instances come from Central and East India, each. Five instances happened in South India, three in North India and two in North East India. This article provides wise details and hydrographs of all these sites.
SANDRP has been tracking the Highest Flood Level (HFL) breach incidents during monsoon season. The analysis of such HFL breaches in 2018 and 2019 are available on our website. In 2018 we had listed 25 such instances though SW Monsoon rainfall was 9.4% below normal. In 2019 we listed 37 such instances when the SW Monsoon rainfall was 10% above normal.
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DRP: 28 Sep 2020: AAP to privatise Delhi Water supply which Arvind Kejriwal opposed?
Delhi Chief Minister Arivind Kejriiwal led govt seems to be now proposing privatisation of Delhi water supply.
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World Rivers Day 2020: Celebrating Rivers across the world
The World Rivers Day[i] (WRD) is celebrated annually on the fourth Sunday of September. The event strives to highlight the invaluable ecological, hydrological services and cultural, recreational values offered by the rivers. Indeed, the most of the once wild, scenic, free flowing rivers across the globe are facing existential crisis on account of various anthropogenic activities hastened over the past century.
However, there are small but significant steps being undertaken by individuals, organizations and governments to restore some of the flowing eco-systems. This account attempts to compile some such positive developments that have taken place in the one year.
We have already published a compilation of the positive river stories of India on the occasion of International Day of Actions for Rivers being held on March 14 2020. In addition to Indian rivers, this compilation also covers some remarkable development concerning river conservation worldwide. There could be many more stories and developments happening, we invite readers to send us such stories they know about.
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DRP: 21 Sep 2020: IHA President accepts-Hydro faces massive slowdown & worse
International Hydropower Association (IHA) is essentially global leader of hydropower lobby. So when IHA President Roger Gill speaks about the problems hydro industry is facing, it becomes very interesting for all concerned.
In this interview the Roger Gill makes it clear that Hydro investments have been slowing down in last five years when compared with investments in immediate earlier decades. It has further slowed down in 2019 and has been further majorly affected by Covid-19 pandemic. Gill also accepts that the hydro is perceived as much more risky compared to solar and wind. The claim he makes of low levelised cost of electricity from hydro projects is a bit of fiction, since cost of any under construction or new hydro will be hugely costlier than solar and wind power projects. The IHA president is catching at the straws when he takes encouragement from investments in existing hydro projects and pump storage, though he keeps making it clear that market is still unclear as far as pump storage tariffs are concerned. A friendly interview also reveals a lot!!
It is high time that the Indian hydropower lobby led by NHPC and power ministry takes due note of the realities and would not push unjustified, unviable and destructive hydropower projects down the throats of reluctant states and people, using scarce public resources.https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/power/hydro-power-requires-100-bn-investment-annually-roger-gill-international-hydropower-association/78131561 (17 Sep 2020)
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North India; CWC Flood Forecasting Sites 2020; New Website Old Problems
Flood forecasting is an important activity during monsoon, considering the huge and increasing flood prone area, flood frequency, intensity and flood damages. Accurate and timely flood forecasting can hugely help reduce the damages due to floods. Central Water Commission (CWC) is the only agency responsible for flood forecasting in India. To understand the CWC’s flood forecasting better, we have compiled the list of the various flood, inflow forecasting sites and flood monitoring sites in India.
In this compilation, we have given state wise list of CWC’s level forecasting, flood monitoring and inflow forecasting sites in North India, comprising of Union Territories Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, Chandigarh, Delhi and states of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. It includes available details like name of river, sub basin, Warning level (WL), Danger Level (DL), High Flood Level (HFL), Full Reservoir Level (FRL), Maximum Water Level (MWL), as applicable. As we see below, there are many gaps in this basic information for the sites that are part of CWC’s list. A similar zonewise overview of CWC’s sites was compiled in 2018 and 2019, which can be seen here: Overview of CWC Flood Forecasting Sites 2018: North India; Overview of CWC Flood Forecasting Sites 2019: North India. We have brought this updated compilation for 2020 as there are large number of changes.
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SANDRP 