Meteorological Issues (Monday, 9 June 2014, 13:30 – 15:15)

Impact of Flash Flood Disaster in Uttarkhanda, India: Implications to Socio-Economic Settings
Nadimikeri JAYARAJU (India)

Climate-Induced Disaster Management among Affected Communities: Exploring the Nuances between the Duo in Nigeria
Babatunde OMOTOSHO (Nigeria)

Integration of Hydrological-Flood Model and Dynamic Economic Model
Aina OTA (Japan)

The Assessment of the Correlation between Extreme Precipitation Events and Geological Disasters
Feng QIANG (China)

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Impact of Flash Flood Disaster in Uttarkhanda, India: Implications to Socio-Economic Settings

Nadimikeri JAYARAJU
Department of Geology, Yogi Vemana University, Kadapa- 516 003, AP, India

Cloudbursts, landslides and flash floods are an annual affair in India. But things were much, much worse in 2013. With many highways damaged, bridges washed away, electricity and phone networks down, several ravaged places continue to be marooned. From 14 to 17 June 2013, the Indian state of Uttarakhand and adjoining areas received heavy rainfall, which was about 375 per cent more than the benchmark rainfall during a normal monsoon. This caused the melting of Chorabari Glacier at the height of 3,800 metres, and eruption of the Mandakini River, which led to heavy floods near Gobindghat, Kedar Dome, Rudraprayag district, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Western Nepal, and acute rainfall in other nearby regions of Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and some parts of Tibet. The upper Himalayan territories of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand are full of forests and snow-covered mountains and thus remain relatively inaccessible. They are home to several major and historic Hindu and Sikh pilgrimage sites besides several tourist spots and trekking trails. Heavy rainfall for four consecutive days as well as melting snow aggravated the floods. Warnings by the India Meteorological Department predicting heavy rains were not given wide publicity beforehand, causing thousands of people to be caught unaware, resulting in huge loss of life. The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Public Works Department and local administrations worked together for quick rescue operations. Several thousand soldiers were deployed for the rescue missions. Activists of political and social organisations were also involved in the rescue and management of relief centres. The national highway and other important roads were closed to regular traffic. Helicopters were used to rescue people, but due to the rough terrain, heavy fog and rainfall, manoeuvring them was a challenge. By 21 June 2013, the Army had deployed 10,000 soldiers and 11 helicopters, the Navy had sent 45 naval divers, and the Air force had deployed 43 aircrafts including 36 helicopters. From 17 June to 30 June 2013, the IAF airlifted a total of 18,424 people, flying a total of 2,137 sorties and dropping/landing a total of 336,930 kg of relief material and equipment. Unprecedented destruction by the rainfall witnessed in Uttarakhand state was attributed by environmentalists to unscientific developmental activities undertaken in recent decades contributing to high levels of loss of property and lives. Roads constructed in a haphazard style, new resorts and hotels built on fragile river banks and more than 70 hydroelectric projects in the watersheds of the state led to a “disaster waiting to happen” as termed by certain environmentalists. Further investigation is warranted in this direction.

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Climate-Induced Disaster Management among Affected Communities: Exploring the Nuances between the Duo in Nigeria

Babatunde OMOTOSHO
Sociology Department, Ekiti State University Ado Ekiti Nigeria

One of the challenges associated with managing climate-induced disaster relates to the attitude of the affected communities to warnings and information provided by relevant authorities for their safety. In Nigeria, for example, a number of warnings and information have been put in place recently to safeguard the well-being of certain communities regarding climate-induced disaster; but reports from the agencies revealed a lackadaisical attitude on the part of affected communities to these professional information. This development portends a risk for the affected communities and the entire nation at large. The questions that come to mind are:

  • Why do they refuse to yield to these warnings meant to safeguard their well-being?
  • On the part of the agencies, how far have they gone in creating awareness for the affected communities in order to bring about the expected behavioural change?
  • Further, what are the procedures and machineries put in place by the relevant agencies in terms of awareness, evacuation and resettlement of affected communities?

Providing answers to these questions become critical considering the implications of the actions of the affected communities on their well-being. This paper aims at critically exploring the nexus between disaster (climate) affected communities and the relevant management agencies. It seeks to further examine the social, cultural and economic issues relating to refusal to yield to the warnings provided by the agencies. Further it aims at critically exploring the activities of the agencies overtime in the areas of awareness creation, evacuation and resettlement of the affected communities. Finally it aims at proffering solutions geared towards improving the activities of the agency in managing climate induced disasters.

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Integration of Hydrological-Flood Model and Dynamic Economic Model

Aina OTA1, Toshio KOIKE2, Yukiko HIRABAYASHI3, Muneta YOKOMATSU4, Takishi KOUNO5

  1. School of Engineering, University of Tokyo, Japan
  2. Professor, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Japan
  3. Associate Professor, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Japan
  4. Associate Professor, Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University
  5. Transportation Planning Dept., Pacific Consultants Co., Ltd.

Catastrophic floods have been suffering people, their lives, and even the economy of the whole country all the way up to the present. Hence it is absolutely clear that governments have to formulate the policy for protecting their people, and in order to enable it, in this study, we aim to reveal the long-term effect of risk reduction investments (e.g. levee, dam, et al) on the macro-economy continuously and numerically.

The research on the effect of floods on the economy has obtained recently (Jogman et al., 2012), though they calculated the occurrence of the flood with data from only four observation stations statistically. Moreover there is no research, which reveals the effect of risk reduction investment on the long-term macroeconomic growth.

Thus in order to achieve the aim mentioned above, first of all, by using the hydrodynamic flood model, CaMa-flood (Catchment-based Macro-scale Floodplain model, Yamazaki, 2012), the flood occurrence was represented accurately and continuously. Furthermore, it was succeeded to construct the levee as the risk reduction investment in the model and to simulate the effect of the levee on the damage. Lastly by using the output from the flood model as the input for the dynamic economic model, (Disaster Risk Reduction investments Accounts for Development, JICA, 2013) the long-term economic effect of the risk reduction investment was figured out.

This study will enhance the government to invest the risk reduction properly and effectively in order to protect their national interest and to sustain their economic growth.

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The Assessment of the Correlation between the Extreme Precipitation Events and Geological Disasters

Feng QIANG, Rufo WANG, Yunhai FENG, Di GENG and Liwei LIU
Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

Based on historic disaster data and observed data of precipitation in Sichuan Province, we have analysed the correlation between extreme precipitation events and geological disasters (landslides and mud-rock flows) in Sichuan Province. The result shows that:

    1. The occurrence of geological disasters has very close correlation with extreme precipitation events, in other words, extreme precipitation is the trigger of geological disasters there.
    2. The geological disasters has the same seasonal variation pattern as the extreme precipitation events, the extreme precipitation events accumulated from June to August each year when it is the period with the highest risk of geological disasters.
    3. The major geological disasters occurred most frequently in northwest mountainous region, southeast and southwest regions with some big river valleys, which is on the big slope in the east of Tibetan plateau, where the extreme precipitation events concentrated.
    4. Apart from geological disasters due to Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, the geohazard occurrence has no sharp variation after the huge earthquake.
    5. Regional climate change has influenced the precipitation distribution, which caused the purtabation of the geological disasters in this area as a result.

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