Panel II: “Approaches to Infrastructure Resiliency in Different National Contexts” Krishna Vatsa, Regional Disaster Risk Reduction Advisor, South Asia UN Development Programme, Bangkok, Thailand

1. Krishna S. Vatsa
Regional Disaster Reduction Advisor, BCPR-UNDP

2. Resilience in the Context of
South Asia Floods
Recent Floods in South Asia have brought the focus
on “Resilience” in several ways:
• Climate Change and its Impact
• Disruption of natural drainage and inundation
• Vulnerability of Flood Protection Structures
• Transportation and Civic Amenities
• Community-level Early Warning & Preparedness
• Coordination of Emergency Response

3. Climate Change & its Impacts
• Monsoon currents originating in the Bay of Bengal
interact with the low pressure systems arising
from the Arabian Sea and the Westerly
disturbances from the Mediterranean
• Concentrated rainfall in the river catchments,
particularly in hilly areas, sometimes augmented
by snowmelt flows
• Breach of glacial lakes– both with stable and
unstable moraine barriers, which bring down a
huge amount of sediments and debris

4. Avulsion of Rivers
• Rivers carry heavy sediment load, aggrading the
channels, and even a small event can cause rivers to
change their course
• The 18 August 2008 avulsion of the Kosi River in Bihar,
India– the river shifted its course by 120 km eastward
causing massive floods
• During 2010 floods in Pakistan, there two major river
avulsions (sudden changes in flow location) occurred
in the Indus river in Sindh; Part of the Indus river
flowed 50–100 km west of its pre-flood location.

5. The Great Avulsion of Kosi River, 2008

6. Vast Expanse of Inundation
• When the rivers take a new course, it generally has a
much lower carrying capacity; water flows like a sheet,
it has a width of 15 to 30 km. with a high velocity. So
floods spread across thousands of square kilometers,
giving it an ocean-like appearance
• Indus water flooded 8,000 sq. km. of agricultural land
• Kosi floods inundated 3,700 sq. km., causing millions
of people to be displaced and living in camps

7. Disruption of Natural Drainage
• Channels carry heavy sediment load, reducing their
capacity to carry water
• Indiscriminate construction and encroachment in river
beds narrows the channels
• Silting up of local water storages such as ponds, tanks,
and destruction of wetlands, reduces the capacity for
water storage
• Drying up, dereliction, and encroachment of natural
water channels
• Non-functioning of flood regulation structures

8. Dhom FRL 747.70 / 11.70 TMC
R. Krishna Satara
R. Venna (Dhom to Karad :16 hrs)
Kanher FRL 690.78 / 9.55 TMC(Khaner to Karad:13 hrs)
(Karad to Sangli:14 hrs)
Karad - CWC River Gauging station
R. Koyna Karad FRL in m / Contents (TMC)
Koyna FRL 657.90 / 94.57 TMC (Koyna to Karad :9 hrs) Warungi
Sangli (Sangli to Rajapur w ier:7.5 hrs)
R. Warna
Samdoli Arjunw ad
Warna FRL 626.90 / 27.50 TMC(Warna to Sangli:15.5 hrs) R. Krishna
Kolhapur (Kol'pur to Kur'w ad: 8 hrs) Shirol
R. Panchganga
Terw ad Kurundw ad
Radhanagari FRL 591.11 / 7.76 TMC
R. Dudhganga
Sadalga Galgali
Dudhganga FRL 646.00 / 23.45 TMC
R. Ghatprabha
Bagalkot
(Travel time show n are for free flow conditions) Almatti FRL 519.60 / 110 TMC
River Length
in KM
Krishna up
Border
301
Koyna upto
Karad
119
Warna upto
Haripur
104
Panchgang
a upto
Kurundwad
83
Dudhganga
upto Yedur
69
Ghatprabha
upto
Mangur
59

10. Flood Early Warning Systems
• Water Authorities are the designated agency for flood
forecasting and early warning who maintain a network of
weather stations throughout the country.
• Weather stations manual, ill-maintained, inadequate, and not
supported by doppler radars. Do not even cover all the flood
prone rivers and drainage system.
• Hydro-meteorological data recorded manually and
communicated by wireless and/or telephone. Lack of
Automatic Sensors and Telemetry System for data collection
and dissemination
• EWS not supported by any projection of inundation /
submergence. A general warning regarding heavy rains does
not provide indication of the extent of flooding.

11. Structural Approach to Flood Mitigation
• In 1950s, the floods were sought to be controlled through
construction of embankments along the rivers across the sub-
continent
• In India, about 34,000 km of new embankments were
constructed since 1954, mostly in north-eastern states. The
Government of India also constructed embankments in major
river systems of Nepal.•
• In Pakistan, it is about 6,800 km of embankments along Indus
and other rivers in all the provinces, along with 1,410 spurs.

12. Structural Approach to Flood Mitigation
• In Bangladesh, a total of 5,695 km of embankments, including
3,433 km in the coastal areas, 1695 flood control/regulating
structures, and 4,310 km of drainage canals have been
constructed.
• Embankments have proved to be an expensive option, leading
to considerable problems of sedimentation and regular
maintenance.
• Poor maintenance of the bunds causes breaches. Such
breaches often cause great damage because of their
unexpected nature and intensification of land use following
the provision of flood protection.

13. Urban Flooding
• Prior to urbanization, there existed a greater lag time
between intense rainfall and peak stream flow.
• Due to urbanization the lag time is shortened, peak flow is
greatly increased, and the total runoff is compressed into a
shorter time interval, creating favorable conditions for
intense flooding.
• For example, in a city that is totally served by storm drains,
and where 60% of the land surface is covered by roads and
buildings (one like Dhaka City), floods are almost six times
more likely

15. Mortality and Incidence of Diseases
• Though mortality related to floods decreased in the last two
decades, the number of deaths increased in recent floods
Floods No. of people died
2008 Koshi floods 500
2010 Pakistan floods 2,000
2013 Uttarakhand, India 6,000
• The incidence of diseases increased considerably after 2007
floods across the South Asia
• Access to water and sanitation facilities in the water-logged
areas very limited; The ingress of saline water in the coastal
areas has decreased the availability of drinking water

16. Use of Toilet During FloodUse of Toilet (caste wise)
In %
Total usage: 8.9%
Toilet Usage
16

17. Flood Relief and Response
• Millions of displaced people occupy higher grounds
without food provision or civic amenities.
• As the duration of floods has generally increased,
displacement is often longer, leading to disruption of
employment, education, and other economic
activities.
• There are not enough boats, search and rescue
volunteers, and other resources to help people
• Relief norms are not uniform leading to uneven
access to relief assistance

18. Floods: A Serious Gender Issue
• Disempowering impact
(Water, water everywhere, but we could not swim)
• Sense of fear and acute anxiety
(I was all alone with my children)
• Living on Embankments and Cooking in Open
(Water used to stay in the field for almost a month – to
be born in the kacchar is useless)
• Loss of Sanitation, Privacy, and Dignity
(It is very difficult for us if we feel we have to go to the
toilet during the daytime)

19. Resilience Approach to
Flood Risk Management
• Take river basin as a unit of mitigation planning
• Suggests an approach, that allow the river its space for
discharge, but aim at minimizing the flood impacts
• Includes both structural and non-structural measures
• Decreases the protection of natural areas, and
increases the protection of cities and built space
• Improve the floodplain management through
changing land use
• Increase community awareness and preparedness and
diversify livelihood opportunities

20. Specific Elements of Floods
Resilience
• Reduce emphasis on embankments as a way to
deal with floods; they create their own risks
• Make the river beds free of encroachments
• Increase plantations and forest cover in
catchment areas of rivers
• Improve the density of telemetric systems to
improve early warning system
• Elevated houses for reducing the flood impacts

22. Developing a Flood Risk Management
Programme for Pakistan
• Systematic Assessment of Flood Hazard Risks:
preparation of simple hazard maps on the basis of
occurrences of recent floods
• Improvement of Flood Warning System through
Installation of Automatic Weather Stations
• Setting up partnerships with private sector mobile
phone companies for timely and effective warning
dissemination

23. Flood Risk Reduction in Pakistan
• Flood Protection Measures:
– Improve Conveyance and Relief Channel
– Reopening culverts
– Increasing the Water Storage
– Studies to improve reservoir management
– Small earthen flood protection structures
– Provision of flood shelters
– Flood-resistant houses
• Advocacy of Floodplain Restoration including
mapping and land use planning