This rarely gets reported in media, but IMD (India Meteorological Department) also provides river basin wise rainfall figures. Here is an overview of the river basin wise rainfall during SW Monsoon 2020 (June-Sept 2020, though the monsoon withdrew much later), like the way we have been doing for the last three years[i]. Our earlier monsoon 2020 articles provided district wise figures for rainfall in June 2020[ii], June-July 2020[iii], June-Aug 2020[iv] and June Sept 2020[v].
Continue reading “IMD continues callous reporting of River Wise Rainfall in Monsoon 2020”Tag: Ganga
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.
Continue reading “DRP: 26 Oct 2020: Why Floods is not big issue in Bihar elections?”
DRP: 19 Oct 2020: India Rivers Week 2020: IS SAND MINING KILLING OUR RIVERS?
India Rivers Week (IRW) Organising Committee is excited to announce that the theme of the forthcoming annual event IRW 2020 will be: “Is Sand Mining Killing our Rivers?”. As part of IRW-2020, India Rivers Forum is organizing a series of Dialogues (digitally). This includes four regional dialogues focusing on North (Oct 31), South (Nov 7), West (Nov 12) and East (including North East: Nov 21)) India, and the final one (Nov 28) focusing on Sand Mining as a National issue.
Sand mining or mining of River Bed Material (RBM, including sand, gravel, boulders) has a huge impact on Rivers, in multiple ways: physical, ecological, livelihood impacts among others. While sand is also sourced from sources other than rivers, IRW 2020 will focus on sand sourced directly or indirectly from rivers. Sand is by definition, a key ingredient of the rivers. It provides habitat for multiple species of the biodiversity in the river. It provides both sub surface storage space and a mechanism to recharge the groundwater. The sand, along with silt, clay, pebbles and boulders are part of the river and are supposed to reach the deltas and provide a key existential medium in floodplain and deltas. To achieve that, sustaining river connectivities is very important.
Continue reading “DRP: 19 Oct 2020: India Rivers Week 2020: IS SAND MINING KILLING OUR RIVERS?”
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.
Continue reading “DRP: 12 Oct 2020: Why is India’s flood forecasting system ineffective?”
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/
Continue reading “DRP: 5 Oct 2020: Nominations Invited for the 2020 Bhagirath Prayas Samman & Anupam Misra Medal”
SW Monsoon 2020: District Wise Rainfall
India received 957.6 mm rainfall in Just concluded South West Monsoon 2020, during the scheduled 4 month monsoon from June 1 to Sept 30, 2020. This is 8.74% above normal monsoon rainfall of 880.6 as per India Meteorological Department (IMD). This is considered ABOVE NORMAL rainfall, since rainfall is in the range 4-10% above Normal rainfall. This sounds good at national level, but the situation on ground could be very different, if we see the rainfall across the country.
It is noteworthy as per even IMD, monsoon has not yet withdrawn from most parts of the country. But IMD closes its monsoon rainfall account at 0830 hours on Sept 30, so all rainfall after that hour has to be counted in “Post Monsoon” rainfall book, even though the rainfall is very much part of monsoon as per IMD.
Continue reading “SW Monsoon 2020: District Wise Rainfall”
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.
Continue reading “DRP: 28 Sep 2020: AAP to privatise Delhi Water supply which Arvind Kejriwal opposed?”
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.
Continue reading “World Rivers Day 2020: Celebrating Rivers across the world”
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.
Continue reading “North India; CWC Flood Forecasting Sites 2020; New Website Old Problems”
