The Hindu Business Line : Asia in `potential path of 100-year flood'

THE Asian continent may bear the brunt of the potential flood hazard, which is expected to affect the lives of an estimated two billion people worldwide by the year 2050.

A United National University study would attribute the `calamitous prognostications' to climate change, deforestation, rising sea levels and population growth in flood-prone lands.

One billion people, one sixth of the global population, the majority of them among the world's poorest inhabitants, are estimated to live today in the potential path of a 100-year flood and, unless preventative efforts were stepped up worldwide, that number could double or more in two generations, the University said.

Floods impact an estimated 520 plus million people every year worldwide, resulting in estimates of up to 25,000 annual deaths, extensive homelessness, disaster-induced disease, crop and livestock damage and other serious harm. Unsustainable land use and other human actions aggravate the situation.

In Asia, every year for the past two decades, more than 400 million people on average have been directly exposed to flood. Between 1987 and 1997, 44 per cent of all flood disasters worldwide affected Asia, claiming 2.28 lakh lives (roughly 93 per cent of all flood-related deaths worldwide). Economic losses in the region in that decade totalled $136 billion.

The fast-growing cost to the world economy of floods and other weather-related disasters (now $50 to $60 billion per year, much of it in developing countries) is roughly equal to the global development aid provided by all donor countries combined.

The flood-related death toll represents 15 per cent of all natural disaster-related loss of life. Even the most advanced nations are affected: the 2002 floods in Europe killed roughly 100 people, affected 4.5 lakh, and left $20 billion in damages; the US, which suffered 50 deaths and $50 billion in damage in the Mississippi River flood of 1993, has averaged 25 flood deaths annually since the 1980s.

The University estimates that the number of people living in flood-prone areas will roughly double due to: more extreme weather systems that accompany global climate change, rising sea levels; and continuing deforestation, especially in mountain regions.

It also predicts that pressure to live and work in flood-prone areas, which typically feature attractive rich soils, abundant water supplies and ease of transport, will increase as the world's population continues spiralling upward to a projected 10 billion by 2050.

In the warmer, wetter world predicted by science today, the northern part of the Northern Hemisphere will likely see more storms while some continental areas might have drier summers and more risk of drought. Sea levels could rise, fed in part by melt-water from glaciers and ice caps.

Most urgently needed to adapt to the growing risk of flood disasters is greater global capacity to monitor and forecast extreme events. Scientists say warming sea temperatures may increase the number of cyclones and storm surges reaching shore. Storm surges can be just as lethal as the weather systems that spawn them, with "walls of water" 60 to 80 kilometres across and two to five metres high that can pour in from the sea with immense force, washing away everything in their path. The most massive storm surge in recent times caused 300,000 deaths in the coastal wetlands of Bangladesh in 1970.

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