66% of India’s population exposed to extreme flood events, only 33% covered by early warning systems: Study

The report, “Strengthening India’s Disaster Preparedness with Technology: A Case for Effective Early Warning Systems”, has also found that Himachal Pradesh – one of the worst affected states in the recent rains with over 90 dead and 60,000 evacuations – has one of the weakest flood warning systems in the country.

“As India witnesses erratic weather patterns and increasing extreme flood events due to climate change, flood EWS needs to be available to a larger population than earlier,” said the report.

“In total, 14 out of 32 states that are exposed to floods, and 9 out of 17 states exposed to cyclones, are highly resilient owing to the availability, accessibility, and effectiveness of EWS and MHEWS. Furthermore, states such as Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, and West Bengal are at the forefront of building resilience by establishing cyclone EWS,” it adds.

The district-level analysis revealed that while 72 per cent of districts in India were exposed to extreme flood events, merely 25 per cent of these exposed districts had level flood forecasting stations.

This meant that two-thirds of individuals in India are exposed to extreme flood events, and only one-third of those exposed individuals have flood EWS.

The comparative analysis revealed that despite high exposure to flooding, the best-performing states were Assam, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, and Sikkim. In contrast, states such as Tamil Nadu, Himachal
Pradesh, Karnataka, and Telangana had the lowest availability of flood EWS.

This study found that 24 out of the 32 states exposed to extreme flood events mention institutional mechanisms and their roles within the elements of the EWS in their state disaster management plans. However, only 6 flood-exposed states – Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, and Goa – have a moderate utilisation of funds allocated for establishing flood EWS and the remaining 26 states have a low utilisation of funds.

“Approximately 97.51 million people in India are exposed to extreme flood events in India, and most districts are exposed to more than one extreme event. This highlights the importance of making EWS available to all in India,” said the report.

Most of India’s exposed population can access early warning information through a mobile or telephone connection, said the report, pointing out that the gap then remains in data collection and dissemination of early warnings.

An earlier 2021 CEEW study found that 27 of 35 Indian states and UTs are now vulnerable to extreme hydro-met disasters and their compounding impacts with 80% of India’s population living in these vulnerable areas.

“Early warning systems are a low-hanging fruit in disaster preparedness. The central and state governments should also invest in regional real-time flood monitoring microsensors, and collaborate with the private sector to improve these warning systems. Leveraging its position as the G20 presidency, India should promote the agenda of making early warnings available to all and champion impact-based people-centric systems for disaster risk reduction,” said lead author Shreya Wadhawan.

Under India’s G20 presidency this year, a working group on disaster risk reduction (DRR) has been formed for the first time since 1999. Further, EWS remains one of the key priorities throughout India’s G20 presidency.

“India has been taking steps to build its resilience to the impacts of such extreme events by increasing preparedness and investing in early warning systems (EWS). But substantial gaps exist, especially in
providing timely, comprehensible, and actionable warnings to the “last-mile”, or the most isolated and vulnerable groups at the community level,” said the report.

Between 1970 and 2019, weather and extreme climate events constituted 79 per cent of all disasters globally, accounted for 74 per cent of all reported economic losses, and 45 per cent of all reported deaths.

At COP 27, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres unveiled an Executive Action Plan to provide Early Warnings for All, stating that “one out of three persons globally, primarily in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Least Developed Countries (LDCs), lack access to effective early warning systems”. This plan requires an investment of USD 3.1 billion from 2023 to 2027 to make EWS available to everyone across the globe”.