Indian Geography Part 5: The Monsoon Failure Playbook — Droughts, Floods and Cloudbursts, Exam-Ready Notes

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Civil ExamsCivil Services1 min read

Disaster geography is a systems topic: hazard, exposure and institutions in one diagram.

On this page

  1. Droughts
  2. Floods and cloudbursts
  3. Institutions
  4. Revise in 30 seconds

Droughts

  • Meteorological, hydrological and agricultural droughts are different beasts.
  • IMD bands: deficit under 19%, moderate drought 19-25%, severe above 25% shortfall.

Floods and cloudbursts

  • Brahmaputra barrier bars and the avulsing Kosi: the sorrow of Bihar.
  • Urban cloudburst model: Mumbai 2005 and Chennai 2015; Himalayan flash floods: Kedarnath 2013, Rishiganga 2021.

Institutions

  • NDMA under the DM Act 2005; IMD and CWC run forecasting.
  • Flood-plain zoning law remains the big missing instrument.

Revise in 30 seconds

  • IMD: above 25% deficit = severe drought.
  • Kosi avulsion: sorrow of Bihar.
  • NDMA born of the 2005 Act.
  • Zoning laws, not embankments, are the unfinished reform.

Quick revision

  • Meteorological, hydrological and agricultural droughts are different beasts.
  • IMD bands: deficit under 19%, moderate drought 19-25%, severe above 25% shortfall.
  • Brahmaputra barrier bars and the avulsing Kosi: the sorrow of Bihar.
  • Urban cloudburst model: Mumbai 2005 and Chennai 2015; Himalayan flash floods: Kedarnath 2013, Rishiganga 2021.
  • NDMA under the DM Act 2005; IMD and CWC run forecasting.
  • Flood-plain zoning law remains the big missing instrument.