One of the central themes of the lively presentations and discussion at the South India Sand Mining Dialogue was that the grain of sand is a habitat for so many lives, as so brilliantly put forward by Munmun Dhalaria, one of the panelists. Another key highlight was that Yogeshwaran, the lawyer painfully noted that sand mining laws are neither environment friendly nor people friendly and can be environment friendly only if they are people friendly.
Continue reading “South Zone Sand Mining Dialogue: The grain of sand is habitat for many lives”Tag: Karnataka
Krishna-Bhima basin floods in Oct 2020 breaks 56-year-old record
Krishna basin is again facing unprecedented floods, for the second straight year. Unprecedented is a bit of overused word these days, but consider the facts: At no less than ten locations, the Highest Flood Levels (HFL) ever recorded at those locations in the Krishna basin were surpassed (nine locations) or equaled (one location). Some of the HFLs surpassed this year were amazing 56, 51 and 44-year-old records! And imagine most of this happening in second half of Oct 2020, when South West monsoon is traditionally over by end of Sept! There is no doubt the floods were unprecedented.
Continue reading “Krishna-Bhima basin floods in Oct 2020 breaks 56-year-old record”
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It is noteworthy as per even IMD, monsoon has not yet withdrawn from most parts of the country.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.
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District wise rainfall in June-Aug 2020 in India
In the ongoing South West Monsoon, India received 44 year old high surplus rainfall of 327 mm in just concluded Aug 2020, 26.6% above normal rainfall of 258.2 mm. This helped the total June-Aug 2020 rainfall to achieve 10% surplus, with actual rainfall 780.3 mm, 69.9 mm higher than normal rainfall of 710.4 mm. In June the country received 18% above normal rainfall and in July it received 9.9% below normal rainfall, the rainfall at the end of June was just 1.1 mm above normal. Thus almost the entire surplus rainfall is thanks to the rainfall during Aug 2020. The rainfall distribution has however, been far from normal that these figures suggest, as we can see from the state wise and district wise figures below.
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Landslides in Kodagu & Western Ghats: A critique of GSI report
Guest Article by Prof Mysooru R. Yadupathi Putty
Introduction This write-up is with regard to the news-paper reports on the “The Geological Survey of India (GSI) Report on the landslides in Kodagu”. This is based on the information furnished by the news-papers and by the scanned copies of the original report of the GSI. The report attributes the landslides to excessive rainfall and extensive slope modifications due to anthropogenic activities, and puts blame on the people who have been using the land to their benefit. This brief article is written in order to bring it to the notice of the authorities concerned, and the people in general, that some of the observations of the GSI are highly ill-conceived, mutually contradictory and technically unsound. They unnecessarily go to rake up untoward feelings and create an impression that the people of Kodagu (Karnataka’s ‘Male-naadu’, in general) responsible for pulling the wrath of the Nature on to themselves. The author of this critique is a Hydrologist, who has been working in the region on Runoff processes, Land-use and Soils for nearly three decades. The following is a review of the available material of the report, point by point. Continue reading “Landslides in Kodagu & Western Ghats: A critique of GSI report”
District wise Rainfall in India in June July 2020
During the just concluded first half of the South West Monsoon 2020, India received 453.3 mm rainfall, just 1.1 mm above the normal rainfall of 452.2 mm during the period. The Surplus of 18% rainfall that India received in June 2020 has thus been wiped out by the 9.9% deficit in July rainfall. Normal rainfall in July 2020 is 285.3 mm, while actual rainfall was 257.1 mm. IMD does not provide monthly figures of rainfall for different states, sub divisions and river basins, which it should along with comparison with respect to normal rainfall and rainfall last year.
To get July 2020 rainfall, we will need to use the figures given in this article along with the figures of June 2020 rainfall (see: https://sandrp.in/2020/06/30/district-wise-rainfall-in-india-in-june-2020/). The district wise figures of June-July 2020 rainfall can be seen in this PDF file from IMD: IMD DISTRICT WISE RAINFALL FROM JUNE 1 TO JULY 31 2020.
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District Wise rainfall in India in June 2020
Here we present the rainfall figures from India Meteorological Department in the just concluded month of June 2020, the first month of SW Monsoon 2020. The overall rainfall at all India level in June 2020 was 196.2 mm, 18% above normal rainfall in the month at 166.9 mm. It was 33% deficit last year.
This is India’s wettest June 12 years, The Times of India reported on July 1, 2020. Agriculture Ministry Data shows that sowing is 68% higher at 31.56 m ha. The June rainfall was 202 mm in 2008, the rainfall this year is the highest since then. All four IMD regions (Northwest, Central, South, East & NE) have recorded surplus rainfall, the surplus is the highest in Central (30.5% surplus) and E-NE (15.7%) regions. North West India had the lowest surplus at 3.5%. IMD Head Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said that whole of India was covered by monsoon on June 26, 12 days ahead of the normal date of July 8.
State wise rainfall Three states had large excess rainfall (above 60% surplus rainfall), namely Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Sikkim. Eight states/UTs (Union Territories) had excess rainfall (20-59% surplus): Assam, Meghalaya, UP, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh & Andaman and Nicobar. Nine had deficient rainfall (20-59% deficit): Lakshadweep, Mizoram, Manipur, J&K, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Dadar & Nagar Haveli. Rest of India had Normal Rainfall. Continue reading “District Wise rainfall in India in June 2020”
Karnataka Sand Mining 2020: Active Collector, Destruction of fish sanctuary & calm collection
Feature image: Extraction of sand from the banks of the Tunga near Chibbalagudde in Tirthahalli taluk posing a threat to the fish sanctuary that hosts 27 species of fish. (The Hindu)
2019 Karnataka sand mining overview showed that the incidents of illegal sand mining were on the rise, state was reportedly consuming around 70 MT (Million Tons) sand annually while the govt was able to produce 30 MT. The govt was losing about Rs 200 crore to illegal sand mining, while about 29,000 cases of illegal stone quarrying and sand mining were detected in past 3 years. Towards the end of 2018, the govt was seen working on 4 separate mining policies for sand, granite, building material and stone crushers to stop the revenue losses.
There were discussions in govt circle promoting M-Sand and importing sand from Malaysia. M-Sand was being produced in 18 districts of state. However there was no clarity on its quality and usage. MSIL had imported 8000 T of sand and sold half of it. Despite facing sand dearth, the govt in Sept. 2018 decided to send imported sand to Kerala. About 0.15 MT Malaysian sand was stuck at two ports.
State wise rainfall Pre Monsoon 2020 & Post monsoon 2019
India Meteorological Department (IMD) divides a water year (June 1 to May 31) into four seasons: Monsoon: (June 1 to Sept 30), Post monsoon (Oct 1 to Dec 31), Winter (Jan 1 to Feb 28/9) and Pre Monsoon (March 1 to May 31). For rainfall during all these seasons, IMD’s hydro-meteorological website[i] provides a lot of data on daily basis, including daily district wise rainfall, state-wise, sub division wise and river wise daily rainfall maps among many other weekly, monthly and seasonal products. However, one problem with it is that none of this information is archived. So if you missed seeing or downloading available data on any date, there is no way to look at it even next day. This is even true of the seasonal rainfall maps, unfortunately.
Most observers look at the monsoon rainfall data, which is clearly the most important season, without doubt. However, the rainfall in other seasons is also very important from a number of perspectives.
Here we are giving a detailed account of the pre-monsoon season rainfall that India received in the season just ended on May 31, 2020, including state wise, sub division wise, river wise and also district wise figures. Along with it, we also provide the figures of post monsoon figures for the just concluded water year. For the winter season (Jan-Feb 2020) we have only the figures for Jan 2020 since we missed downloading the Feb 2020 figures. We had already provided the monsoon 2019 figures through two blogs in October 2019[ii].
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44% above normal rainfall in Oct 2019 creates hopes for Rabi, Disaster for Kharif crops at many places
The Oct 2019 rainfall all over India was 109.7 mm, 44% above normal expected rainfall of 76 mm, following 53% above normal in Sept 2019. The rainfall this month has been unusual and has had some major impacts. One of the reasons has been that the SW monsoon withdrawal continued well into Oct 2019, when it almost always gets over by the end of Sept. There were also several cyclonic circulations and depressions mostly from Arabian sea. Continue reading “44% above normal rainfall in Oct 2019 creates hopes for Rabi, Disaster for Kharif crops at many places”
SANDRP 