Floods may hit 5 times more people in 25 yrs

Study states that if additional adaptation steps are not taken, flooding could cause greater damage in the coming years

NEWDELHI: A recent global study has found that the number of people in India impacted by flooding of rivers may increase five times in next 25 years unless additional adaptation measures were taken.

India was hit by at least 19 extreme weather events in 2017, says a report by India Meteorological Department. A compilation of last year’s extreme events showed that a majority of these were in the form of floods, heavy rains and landslides.

Extreme weather events, natural disasters and a failure of climate-change mitigation and adaptation are three of the environmental risks that made it the top 10 risks, both in terms of likelihood and impact, facing the world in 2018, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report published last week.

India is disproportionately impacted by a changing climate with impacts like growing frequency of extreme weather events, rise of sea level, and disruptive rainfalls.

“There is a huge rise in the extreme rain events since 1950s, almost three-fold,” said Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropi- cal Meteorology. “Due to climate change and warming in the Arabian Sea, there are large fluctuations in the monsoon winds and an episodic surge in moisture transport which cause large-scale extreme rainfall events.”

Environmental disasters aren’t just a risk to human lives; there is an economic cost attached, too.

“Natural catastrophes are likely to increase as the planet becomes warmer and the earth experiences longer-term shifts and variability in weather patterns caused by climate change,” Michael Wilkins, head of sustainable finance, S&P Global Ratings, said in a release.

Environmental disasters, both natural and man-made, will be high on the agenda at the WEF 2018 that opens in Davos on Tuesday, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the plenary session.

› Natural catastrophes are likely to increase as the planet becomes warmer and the earth experiences longerterm shifts and variability in weather patterns caused by climate change. MICHAEL WILKINS, head sustainable finance, S&P Global Ratings