The Hindu Business Line : Disaster management in Europe

Europeans conclude there is little point in trying to prevent flooding; they will instead have to become better at managing it. Much of the European strategy is centred on such proactive preparation and efficient disaster management.

Mohan Murti

For the past few weeks, televisions all across Europe have been screening the terrible images from Bihar flooding and the distress, devastation and the consequences being felt by families throughout the flood-hit areas.

Europeans were amused when the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, quickly described the situation as a “national calamity” and announced a relief package ofRs 1,000 crore and 125,000 tonnes of grain. For citizens of Europe, these just seemed like quick, clever opaque words and a knee-jerk action.

Abysmally, the Prime Minister and his Cabinet, the leaders of the Opposition and their contemporaries, including the Left parties, have not uttered a word of how the country can avoid catastrophic loss from floods, year after year. There is no plan announced, of “disaster preparedness”.

Almost three million Indians are homeless and displaced. There are no bundhs, morchas, dharana called and, no Parliament questions asked. Life goes on. Its business as usual. Until the next tragedy comes about, same time, next year.

Shamefully, India is second in the world after Bangladesh in deaths caused by flooding, accounting for one-fifth of global flooding deaths.

In Europe, past climate is no longer considered a safe guide to what might be expected in the future. Europeans conclude there is little point in trying to prevent flooding, they will instead have to become better at managing it. Much of the European strategy is centred on such proactive preparation and efficient disaster management. It is impossible for me to cover every aspect of it, but I will highlight the most important areas that European disaster management strategy covers.

Pluvial Flood Management

Instead of building bigger and bigger drains and pumping stations to direct water away from settlements, the European strategy is to either prevent or slow down the rate at which water enters drainage systems. The various nationals governments provide funding to ensure that the potential for pluvial flooding is mapped and that greater priority is given to pluvial flood management.

I realise that that might sound like something from an episode of “Doctor Who”, but we need in India, a change, both in the temporal and spatial scale of our thinking, on flooding. What is required is catchment-based management. There should be a 25-year strategy to guide prioritisation of investment in flood management.

EU Risk Management Directive

To tackle the specific impacts of climate change on water resources, the European Council adopted, in November 2007, the Directive on flood risk management. While floods are natural phenomena, the Europeans believe that human activity can exacerbate their likelihood. By undertaking adequate prevention measures, the probability of floods can be reduced and their impact minimised. The EU Directive makes flood management a key part of river basin management stressing the importance of non-structural measures such as using natural flood plains as retention areas for water during floods.

Awareness Campaign

I would like to mention the fantastic awareness campaign for the European public regarding flood risks and opportunities. European citizens from all sections of society are encouraged to participate in local and regional policy processes on flood risk management and spatial planning to become aware of the risks and to provide valuable input in the process of decision-making during disasters.

Hydrological systems in the Netherlands

Let me cite the example of this man-made European country. About half the Netherlands’ surface is either below sea level or below average river level. Over half the population lives in these areas, where being at risk to floods has always been a condition of life.

So, in a way, much of the geography of the Netherlands is a technological artefact. Polders, dikes and systems for pumping water are well-known elements of the Dutch geography. In this respect I must also mention river discharge management, which is to a large extent real-time controlled, by moveable dams in the rivers.

About half the Netherlands — the Western part — is below sea-level, and millions live in these areas, protected by dikes. Also, alongside the rivers Rhine and Meuse there are areas lower than average river levels. Yet, this country has never seen the kind of disaster Indians see, year after year!

Warning System for Flooding

In the mid-1970s, I was a student of the erstwhile Madras University and the Chennai city experienced one of the worst floods at that time. The entire city came to a standstill for almost a week and we were almost 10,000 students involved in the relief work, as part of the National Service Scheme (NSS). I was personally involved for two weeks in the relief camp in Kotturpuram village, which was badly flooded. In the relief and de-silting work we were involved, I visited the home of one very elderly lady who told me that, the water level rose so rapidly that her only daughter and her two-month-old grandchild drowned in their sleep.

Weeping and howling, she pulled out from her small plastic bag containing her personal belongings, a photograph of her daughter and the child, only to remember that they no longer exist. That is a devastating experience for anyone; that is a tragedy for the individuals concerned.

Sadly, thirty years since that experience, we in India, still cannot protect our communities. Millions of Indians still shed tears as there is no real warning system for pluvial or fluvial flooding; there is no national floodline service, which works well in providing information on flood warning and risk.

Noah Rule

Warren Buffet, the soothsayer of Omaha, so astutely said: You must follow “the Noah rule: Predicting rain doesn’t count, building arks does.

European nations are constantly doing a lot of “outside the box” thinking, finding innovative solutions that are turning some major disasters into routine facts of life like headaches and common cold.

(The author is former Europe Director, CII, and lives in Cologne, Germany. blfeedback@thehindu.co.in)

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