U’khand disaster linked to infra devp, says study

NEW DELHI: The Kathmandu based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) has said there is a link between the February 7 glacier breach disaster in Uttarakhand’s Rishi Ganga river with infrastructure development, particularly the construction of hydropower projects in the higher reaches of Himalayas.

In its analysis of the disaster published on March 3 titled “Understanding the Chamoli flood: Cause, process, impacts, and context of rapid infrastructure development”, the ICIMOD cites cryosphere experts, hydrologists, and climate scientists to arrive at the conclusion that hydropower projects, apart from amplifying disaster threaten environmental flows, water quality, and the health of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.

The projects are also facing risks from climate crisis-related flow variations, extreme events, erosion and sedimentation, and glacial laker outburst floods (GLOFs)/ and landslides dammed outburst floods (LDOFs). A GLOF is a release of meltwater from a moraine- or ice-dam glacial lake due to dam failure. LDOF happens when a breach occurs in such dams as a result of erosion of the debris or landslide material, it added.

The analysis is significant because the Defence Geo-informatics Research Establishment under Defence Research and Development Organisation recently said the tragedy was not “immediately” a human induced disaster. “There is a need to look upon the demographic pressures in a systematic way but as far as this particular tragedy is concerned in our preliminary investigations the role of human activity is not the immediate cause. It [glacial breach] was far away from the area where several constructions [NTPC hydel power project in Tapovan and Rishi Ganga hydel plant] are taking place,” said Lokesh Sinha, director of DGRE.

But ICIMOD termed the area “a multi-hazard environment”. “Often these hazards are of a cascading nature with multiple hazards interconnected with a primary hazard trigger and a chain of secondary and tertiary hazards. Human interference in the mountain environment is rapidly increasing... The interplay between natural hazards with human settlements and infrastructure is an important aspect, which can significantly escalate the impact of events like the Chamoli flood,” it added. “Hydropower is essentially clean energy and doesn’t degrade local ecology,” argued VK Kanjlia, former secretary of the Central Board of Irrigation & Power.