How do we exit the cycle of floods and deaths?

Mumbai: The cycles of extreme climate, alternating between floods and drought, is getting worse by the year, and there are no answers. This year, more than half the country is reeling from floods. Punjab is facing its worst deluge since 1988. Haryana, Rajasthan, and the hill states of Himachal and Uttarakhand have seen cloudbursts, and entire towns being wiped out. In neighbouring Pakistan, the north-west has suffered far worse, with millions displaced and over a 1,000 lives lost. It is not a pretty picture. Across Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Haryana, the combined death toll has reached 500 as of September 4, 2025. Himachal is the worst with 355 deaths. In the northeast, relentless rains in June have claimed 30 lives. Every year the location and toll numbers change. Otherwise, the destruction of lives, crops and human habitation continues with sickening repetition. Somehow our planners and government departments have never really digested the old adage ofgeographer Gilbert F. White, who noted in 1942, Floods are acts of God, but flood losses are largely acts of man. Upstream water Punjab is facing its worst floods since 1988 with nearly 2,000 villages submerged, 4 lakh acres of farm lands devastated and nearly 3.9 lakh people across 9 districts having to migrate to relief spots. Environmental platform Mongabay has documented the extent and reasons for the damage. Punjabs affected villages mainly lie along the River Ravi and lower reaches of the Beas and Sutlej. The waters swelled to unmanageable proportions due to incessant rains in upstream areas in Himachal, which has received as much as 46% above-normal rainfall till 8 September. The situation worsened with the lower catchment areas in Punjab too receiving 55% excess rain. Environmental activists point to the shoddy management of dam waters. The excess release of water at the wrong time, is one of the principal problems. While the Centre controls the Bhakra-Beas Management Board (BBMB) that manages Bhakra and Pong dams, the Punjab government manages the Ranjit Sagar dam on the River Ravi. In the early part of August, the release of water from these dams was kept low despite heavy rainfall in the catchment areas. This was a huge mistake. Thereafter, Himanshu Thakkar, the coordinator of South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP), said: They had to eventually release heavy quantities of water from August 26 onwards when Punjab was already facing floods due to local rainfall. It ultimately led to the submergence of large parts of Gurdaspur and Pathankot districts. There is rightful fury at the dam management organistions. Citizens groups have filed petitions before the National Green Tribunal (NGT), while the Himachal government has filed an F.I.R. against the dam authority accusing it of releasing excess water without warning. Glacial outbursts Significantly, the floods that ravaged the Harsil region of Uttarakhand on 5 August, wiped out riverside towns Dharali and Sukhi Top, and have claimed several lives, have a different explanation. Despite reports of cloudbursts, the Indian Meteorological Department recorded minimal rainfall. Harsil recorded only 6.5 mm of rain on the day of the disaster, while Bhatwari received just 11.5 mm over 24 hours. This is far short of what is defined as a cloudburst, which implies a massive precipitation of 100 mm or more of rainfall over 24 hours over a localized area. This has led some experts to venture a hypothesis that it was not a cloudburst, but rather a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) or a glacier collapse in the upper reaches that triggered the flash floods. What these experts are saying is that climate change is accelerating glacial retreat, leading to the formation and expansion of glacial lakes that can break their bunds at any time. It is also time that the state government and commercial groups be made accountable for having slaughtered trees, expanded roads and highways in the ecologically sensitive Himalayan zones. It has changed the course of rivers like the River Kheer Ganga. The destruction caused by floods in Pakistan needs intensive study too. As a country that contributes barely 1% towards global climate change, it has suffered widespread damage. Speaking to Dialogue Earth, climate scientist Mohammad Ehsan Leghari said the floods were triggered with 200 to 300 mm of rainfall in a short spell, along with glacial melts, and northern heatwaves in June. While these natural disasters came together, he pointed to the human-made disasters too -- the deforestation, and urbanization and human encroachments blocking the natural flows. Similarly, the Ravi Urban Development Authority s paving of floodplains along the River Ravi in Punjab turned absorbent areas into concrete, inviting devastation by turning them into river paths. The bigger tragedy is there is no learning or rolling back mistakes of the past. Extreme and cyclical changes of climate are not being factored in. The El Nino effect - warming of central and equatorial Indian and Pacific Ocean waters that cause millions of cusecs of rain being dumped in as far off places as Europe, the Horn of Africa, and Bali this year -- has not been reversed. In Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand, despite the tragedy that unfoleded recently in the states Harsil sector, there is no rethink on devastating projects in the valley. A Rs 6,200-crore Rispana -- Bindal Elevated Corridor, two flyovers of over 26 kilometers, are in the pipeline. The plan includes erecting support columns in the middle of the beds of Rivers Rispana and Bindal that will choke the natural flow of water and create flooding along the banks of the rivers. Bharti Jain, architect and town planner, has pointed out that as far back as 2007 the flyovers were to be implemented after feasibility studies and Environmental Impact Assessment is done. However, the Doon authorities are brazenly implementing these projects without a thought for on the citys environment, Ms Bharti told this writer.