New Delhi: District of Kendrapara in Odisha faces ‘Dual Risk’ of Fllods and Drought. This information came to fore with release of the Report on ‘District-level Climate Risk Assessment for India: Mapping Flood and Drought Risks Using the IPCC Framework’.
The Report containing an in-depth analysis of flood and drought risks across 698 districts in India, was released recently at IIT Delhi.
Dual Risk of Flood and Drought shows that among the top 50 districts with the highest flood risk and the top 50 districts with the highest drought risk, 11 districts are at a ‘Very High’ risk of both flood and drought.
Districts facing this dual risk include Patna in Bihar; Alappuzha in Kerala; Charaideo, Dibrugarh, Sibsagar, South SalmaraMankachar, and Golaghat in Assam; Kendrapara in Odisha, and Murshidabad, Nadia, and Uttar Dinajpur in West Bengal.
The report’s Flood Risk Assessment, based on the integrated data on flood hazards, exposure, and vulnerability, highlighted that, on a comparative scale, fifty-one districts fall into the ‘Very High’ flood risk category, and another 118 districts fall into the ‘High’ flood risk category.
About 85% of districts in the ‘Very High’ or ‘High’ flood risk category are in Assam, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, Odisha, and Jammu and Kashmir.
The Drought Risk Assessment indicates the variation in drought risk across districts of India. On a comparative scale, ninety-one districts fall in the ‘Very High’ drought risk category and another 188 districts in the ‘High’ drought risk category.
More than 85% of districts in the ‘Very High’ or ‘High’ drought risk category are located in Bihar, Assam, Jharkhand, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Uttarakhand, and Haryana.