Dams, negligence, and the making of Himalayan floods

SCARY visuals, rainfall data, messages on social media and some pronouncements of the Supreme Court reflect the severity of the flood disaster in Himachal Pradesh. Himachal is known to be vulnerable to landslides, mudslips, cloudbursts, flashfloods, erosion, seismicity and floods. But how floods become disasters is linked to the way we treat the landscape, environment, regulations, people and floods.A number of anthropogenic factors have led to a rise in the scale of the disasters. Himachal Pradesh has the largest installed capacity of hydropower projects and the largest number of dams among the Himalayan states.The key requirements of the decision-making process related to such projects include honest environmental, social and disaster impact assessments and management plans at both project and river basin levels. Also needed are cumulative impact assessments, transparent appraisal and credible monitoring and compliance mechanisms. Most of these aspects are missing at both the state and central levels.The hydropower projects and dams can help moderate floods only if they are operated with that objective in mind. Their standard operating procedures, including rule curves, updated every five years, must be in the public domain, along with the identity of the authorities responsible. Dam operations must be informed by the actual water flow and rainfall in the upstream and downstream catchments and rivers and the carrying capacity of the rivers and catchment in the downstream.All information related to dam operations must be put in the public domain (the website) on a daily basis and archived for at least five years. Functioning early warning systems must be in place not only in glacier catchments of dams and hydro projects but also in all landslide- or flashflood-prone streams. The accountability mechanism must kick in whenever any operating procedure is violated.Rivers and streams must have the adequate waterway capacity to carry potential flood waters. The encroachments, particularly those that have come up over the last couple of decades, must be systematically and humanely removed.Muck arising out of the construction of dams, hydro projects, roads, railways, townships, bridges, mining, etc, must be disposed of systematically so that it does not enter the rivers, reducing their carrying capacity. This requires policy and credible governance, including monitoring, compliance and accountability mechanisms.We must learn from the past disasters. The government must institute an independent assessment of each disaster to understand what happened, who was responsible, what lessons can be learned, and who should be held accountable. Without this basic step, we cannot understand the impacts and implications of these disasters.The First Information Reports (FIRs) filed in August by the HP Government against the BBMB and other dam operators is a good first step; it must be taken to its logical conclusion. It should not be ineffective, like the notices that the HP Chief Secretary issued to many dam authorities in August 2023.We also need to underline the failure of the Central Water Commission, the national flood forecaster. It has not only failed to forecast most floods, even its monitoring seems to break down at every sign of disaster. Its inflow forecasting does not take into account the rule curve nor is it ready to name any dam for wrong operations.Similarly, the IMD has failed to provide actionable, location- and time- specific rainfall forecast. The word cloudburst is used so regularly, but in most cases, the IMD refuses to certify the events as cloudbursts since in most cases, it does not have the means to quantify the local rainfall.The Doppler radars, that help forecast high-intensity rainfall events, are non-functional at most places. And the IMD fails to report river basin- and sub-basin-wise rainfall, the key requirement to forecast river and dam inflows.On disaster management, we do well in rescue and relief operations, but miserably fail in prevention — a front on which so much can be done. A good example is the Guidelines on Management of Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOF), brought out by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in October, 2020. The GLOF provides useful suggestions on preventing disasters and reducing their impact, but none of its key recommendations have been implemented since it came out.Why are the national and state dam safety authorities silent on the avoidable disasters brought upon by wrong operations of dams year after year? Why do we see no impact of the Dam Safety Act?Every year, the callousness of the National Highways Authority in being responsible for violations and landslides is pointed out, yet, no corrective action seems to have been taken.Similarly, there are big questions about the functioning of the national and state tourism departments and pilgrimage authorities as also about the roles of media, academics, civil society and judiciary. Sadly, the cost we pay for all these failures is multiplying amid the changing climate.If these issues are not addressed urgently, we will face bigger disasters and progress towards the Supreme Court's prognosis about Himachal Pradesh disappearing from the map. In fact, the Himalayas have been speaking louder than the SC. If only we care to listen, if only we pay heed.Himanshu Thakkar is Coordinator, South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People.

Dams, negligence, and the making of Himalayan floods

Himanshu Thakkar

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