Rainfall data (July2023) of some towns in the Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya.

In July2023, the monsoon advance and covered the entire country.

Quite clearly:

• Rainfall was deficient in Darjeeling, Kalimpong and even Kurseong region. All three towns had very little rain in the latter half of July2023.
  
• The foothills of Kalimpong district, ie Gorubathan, Jaldhaka, Mangzing, Jholung had a huge surplus in rainfall.
  
• Gangtok and Mangan also had excess rainfall, whereas Dentam went severely deficient.
  
• As such, the towns in the plains ie Jalpaiguri and Siliguri had significantly more rainfall compared to the hill towns.
  
  
  Praful Rao,
  Kalimpong district,
  Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya
  savethehills@gmail.com
  9475033744
  

Why STH must prevail - GSI's new map of landslide prone areas in the country

GSI, the nodal body for landslides in the country has recently updated their website with a more graphic map of the landslide prone areas of the country. An excerpt of the information on the GSI website is placed below :-
'In India, about 0.42 million sq. km or 12.6% of land area, excluding snow covered area, is prone to landslide hazard. Out of this, 0.18 million sq. km falls in North East Himalaya, including Darjeeling and Sikkim Himalaya; 0.14 million sq. km falls in North West Himalaya (Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir); 0.09 million sq. km in Western Ghats and Konkan hills (Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra) and 0.01 million sq. km in Eastern Ghats of Aruku area in Andhra Pradesh. The landslide-prone Himalayan terrain also belongs to the maximum earthquake-prone zones (Zone-IV and V; BIS 2002) where earthquakes of Modified Mercalli intensity VIII to IX can occur, and thus, are also prone to earthquake-triggered landslides. The most recent example is the aftermath of 18 September 2011 Sikkim Earthquake in the Sikkim-Darjeeling Himalayas.'

Italics and map insertion are mine.
Praful Rao,
Kalimpong,
Dist Darjeeling

About Dams .... and landslides.

Recently two interesting articles have appeared about dams and their impact on mountain environments.

Placed below is an excerpt quoting a CAG report on dams and its adverse effects on mountain ecology :-

Hydro projects causing degeneration of hill ecology: CAG

By Vishal Gulati | IANS India Private Limited – Wed 5 Jun, 2013

Shimla, June 5 (IANS)
'The hydropower projects in Himachal Pradesh -- in private and public sectors -- are not only gobbling up forests but also damaging natural resources, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has found.
The compensatory afforestation by the state is highly deficient as 58 percent of the test-checked hydropower projects reported no afforestation at all, the CAG said in its recent report.
It pointed out that lack of re-greening of hills poses severe hazards both to natural ecology and stabilisation of hill slopes……………….
Environmentalist R.S. Negi, who heads the Him Lok Jagriti Manch, a people's movement against upcoming hydro projects in Kinnaur district, told IANS: "The hydro projects are destructive not only to the rivers but also to traditional water channels."
"Before allocating any new project in the entire Himalayan region that falls in seismic zone-IV and the more severe zone-V, the government should first undertake carrying capacity and cumulative impact assessment of the projects," he said.'

The full article is here

Excerpt from another article on Large Dams and Landslides by Dr David Petley is below :-

'The interesting thing here is the paucity of large dams in and around the Himalayan chain (and indeed the Andes).  As I have shown before, the Himalayas are really the global epicentre for landslide activity, so this is the environment that requires the highest level of care with respect to landslide problems. The map below homes in on the Himalayas, again with a DEM as the backdrop:

You will see that there are two types of symbol shown here. The circles with dots in the centre are locations in which my database indicates there have been fatality-inducing landslides associated with large dams in the last ten years. These are mostly landslides at dam construction sites or landslides that have impacted the camps housing employees associated with dam construction or operation. There are a surprising number of landslides given the numbers of dams in this part of the world. This suggests to me that we are not managing landslides properly in this part of the world. …….

My sense is that we are pushing our luck to the limit with the planned dams in and around the Himalayan Arc. The question as to whether these dams should be built at all is important but beyond the scope of this blog. However, the potential landslide problems in these areas are acute and will require a much higher level of management than appears to be occurring at present'

The full article is here

Italics in the above articles are mine.

Praful Rao,

Kalimpong

Why we ought to be bothered ...

Economies of Bangladesh, Philippines, Myanmar, India, Viet Nam at highest risk (excerpt from Maplecroft Natural Hazards  Risk Atlas)


15/08/2012
Some of Asia’s most important growth economies have the highest financial risk from the threat of natural hazards, due to the high exposure of their cities and trading hubs to events such as flooding, earthquakes and tropical cyclones, according to the 2nd Natural Hazards Risk Atlas released by Maplecroft.
Bangladesh, the Philippines, Myanmar, India and Viet Nam are among the ten countries with the greatest proportion of their economic output exposed to natural hazards. In addition, they also demonstrate poor capability to recover from a significant event exposing investments in those countries to risk of supply chain and market disruptions. This could lead to sizable business interruption costs, in addition to material damage to essential infrastructure. Maplecroft’s research also showed that it could exacerbate other risks like societal unrest, food security, corruption and rule of law even leading to increased political risk.
“High exposure to natural hazards in these countries are compounded by a lack of resilience to combat the effects of a disaster should one emerge,” explains Maplecroft’s Head of Maps and Indices Helen Hodge. “Given the exposure of key financial and manufacturing centres, the occurrence of a major event would be very likely to have significant impacts on the total economic output of these countries, as well as foreign business.”

Praful Rao