Prepare a report on the problem of floods in Assam in about 700-800 words. Irrelevant answers will be reported.
Answers
Explanation:Floods, fl ash fl oods, river-bank erosion, and sand casting (deposition of large amounts of sand by fl ood water) are the most frequent water- induced hazards in the eastern Brahmaputra basin in Assam. Located in the north-eastern region of India in the eastern Himalayas (Das 2009), fl oods affect this part of Assam every year; fl ash fl oods are also a normal component of the fl ood regime. Sand casting, although not a new phenomenon, has become increasingly devastating since the mid 1990s, especially on the northern banks of the eastern Brahmaputra valley. All of these hazards affect all aspects of the land, lives, and livelihoods of communities living in the region to a signifi cant degree. Both fl oods and fl ash fl oods leave people homeless and displaced, destroy crops, damage public property, and damage development infrastructure. Victims who become destitute suffer from trauma and shock. Moreover, annual cycles of hazards cripple people’s resilience and intensify the poverty spiral. Thousands of hectares of fertile land in hundreds of villages with crops, settlements, and infrastructure have been lost to the river due to frequent shifting in the river course and erosion of river banks. Sand casting has proved to be one of the worst hazards because it results in degradation of thousands of acres of farm land and wetlands due to deposition of debris, mainly coarse sand particles, by fl ood waters. The indigenous communities living in these areas have developed mechanisms over time that have become ingrained in their lifestyles and traditions – for example, housing, agriculture, livestock rearing, food storage, and weather and fl ood predictions – and these help them to cope with and adapt to the immediate and long-term impacts of such hazards. Climate change is considered a major driving force, triggering alterations in the regional and local weather and climate systems all over the globe. These changes have, in turn, affected the socioeconomic, cultural, and political spheres of human societies (IPCC 2007). The impacts of climate change on the Himalayan region are rising temperatures, recession of glaciers, extreme rain events, increased incidences of landslides and cloudbursts, and fl ash fl oods triggered by landslides which affect the hydrological regimes of large rivers like the Brahmaputra that sustain millions of people, scores of ethnic cultures, and diverse ecosystems in the eastern Himalayan region (Singh and Bengtsson 2005; Bajracharya et al2007)
Answer:
As a second surge of floodwaters washed over Assam since the third week of June, over 1.5 million people in 25 districts had been affected, the death toll had climbed to 34. Some 20,000 people have taken shelter in 270 relief camps across the state, according to sources at the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA). The waters also took a heavy toll on livestock and affected over 87,000 ha of cultivated area.The situation was exacerbated by Bhutan releasing over 2,700 cumecs of excess water from the Kurichu dam, which in turn inundated lower Assam districts like Barpeta and Nalbari. Three districts – these two plus South Salmara – have been the worst-affected in the current floods.State authorities have had an uphill task organising their response, even as they also deal with a Japanese encephalitis outbreak as well as the COVID-19 epidemic. Before the floods, government officials had also been preoccupied with arranging quarantine facilities for people returning to the state from around the country, which were already in disarray thanks to Cyclone Amphan.