The states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu are in the news since the last few days because of the heavy rains that have left the region battered by flooding and water-logging at several places leading to reports of death, destruction and displacement of large populations in the area. As if this is not enough, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has warned of more rains to come over the next few days!
Extreme weather events (EWEs) such as floods, heatwaves, cold waves, tropical cyclones, lightning, heavy rainfall are becoming very frequent in India, leading to huge losses to lives and property and threats to the livelihoods of vulnerable communities.
<p><em>There has been an 18 percent increase in annual EWEs in the time span of 2007–2016 as compared to 1997–2006 in India, informs this paper titled '<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221209472100013X">An assessment of long-term changes in mortalities due to extreme weather events in India: A study of 50 years’ data, 1970–2019</a>' published in the journal <a href="https://www.journals.elsevier.com/weather-and-climate-extremes">Weather and Climate Extremes</a>. </em></p>
The paper highlights the critical need to analyse the recent extreme events for better planning at the policy level and for devising disaster management strategies. The study presents an analyses of the major EWEs in India over the past five decades (1970–2019) by using India Meteorological Department (IMD) data.
The analysis finds that:
<p><em><h3>While EWEs have increased, there has been a decrease in the mortality rate</h3> (mortalities per year per million population) for heatwaves and floods, during the last 50 years. Thus, deaths due to EWEs were maximum during the decade of 1970–1979 and majority (88 percent) of these were due to floods and tropical cyclones. This was because of three major cyclones that happened in the decade. They were lower in 1980–1989 and have reduced by 66 percent in 2000 -2019.</em></p>
Of the deaths reported in the last decade, 49 percent have been due to floods and 24 percent due to heatwaves.
However, deaths due to floods have reduced over the decades with them decreasing by 3 to 5 percent in each decade from 1980 to 2009, and by 20 percent in the last 10 years, despite the increase in the total flood events.
However, deaths due to tropical cyclones have decreased by almost 88 percent in the last decade 2010–2019 in comparison to the earlier decade 2000–2009, despite the significant increasing trend of severe tropical cyclones during the post-monsoon season over Bay of Bengal.
<p><em>The highest deaths per year in the past 50 years have been reported from the state of Andhra Pradesh (which included Telangana state till 2014), followed by the states of Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Bihar. </em></p>
State-level analysis shows that
Mortality due to heatwaves is high in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Bihar, and Rajasthan while due to cold waves is high in the states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand.
The mortality rates due to tropical cyclones in most of the affected states of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Gujarat, and West Bengal show a declining trend while that due to
The mortality rates due to lightning have increased in most of the vulnerable states with the highest increase being in Odisha in the last two decades.
<p><em>The high population states like <h3>Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Assam, Maharashtra, Kerala, and West Bengal suffer from maximum mortalities by EWEs</h3> and there is a need to prioritise these states for developing action plans, argues the paper.</em></p>