Rainfall deficit India

Climate Change Made UP Heatwave at Least Two Times More Likely: Climate Index

The fact that these extreme temperatures occurred along with high humidity is unusual and contributed to the severity of the event, researchers at Climate Central said in their analysis.

Kochi: Climate change made the recent heatwave in Uttar Pradesh at least two times more likely, as per the Climate Shift Index, which quantifies the impact of climate change on local weather in real time.

As per reports, the districts of Ballia and Deoria in UP witnessed 150 deaths in five days (from June 14 to June 18), when temperatures ranged around 42°C. While there have been questions about lapses in the implementation of the state’s heat action plan, an official with the state’s disaster management authority told The Wire that “it was too early to say” as data is being obtained from districts regarding implementation.

Links between climate change and temperatures

Climate change – caused by global warming due to increased carbon emissions in the atmosphere – can cause extreme weather events. Heat waves are one of them.

As per the India Meteorological Department (IMD), a heat wave “is a condition of air temperature which becomes fatal to [the] human body when exposed [to it]”. The IMD defines a heat wave as occurring if temperatures depart by 4.5°C to 6.4°C more than normal (above different temperature levels for hills and plains), and a severe heat wave when the temperature rises to more than 6.4°C.

The duration of heatwaves in India increased by about 2.5 days between 1961 and 2021 due to global warming, as per a report released by the IMD on April 26 this year.

Parts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are reeling under a heat wave. Per one report, at least 96 people have died in the two states between June 14 and June 18. Another cited 150 deaths in five days (from June 14 to June 18) in Ballia and Deoria districts of Uttar Pradesh alone. Authorities have not officially put it down to the heat wave, but said that those who died were above 60 and suffered from different ailments “which may have aggravated due to the heatwave”.

The heat wave is still ongoing. On June 20, the Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya chaired a high-level meeting to review the situation, and directed an expert team be sent to UP and Bihar to support them in public health response measures to address heat-related illnesses.

Climate Shift Index

Researchers at Climate Central, a US-based climate research and communications group, found that the three-day extreme heat event over parts of UP from June 14 to June 16 was made at least two times more likely by climate change.

They analysed the Climate Shift Index (CSI), developed by Climate Central, that uses a categorical five-point scale to show how climate change makes daily average temperatures more or less likely around the world.

Currently, the index includes more than 1,000 cities and the online real-time map can also reveal changes across regions around cities.

CSI levels over 1 indicate a clear climate change signal, while levels between 2 and 5 mean that climate change made those temperatures between two and five times more likely. Per the team, the methodology used to calculate the CSI is based on peer-reviewed science.

A CSI of 4 means that the day’s temperature was made at least four times more likely than it would have been without the influence of climate change.

The researchers shared the CSI maps centered for the regions around the cities of Lucknow, Kanpur, Gorakhpur, and Varanasi for these dates with The Wire. These show that the CSI was 3 on June 14 and 15 over some parts of these regions within the state. The CSI decreased to 2 on June 16.

The Climate Shift Index map, centred for Lucknow, Kanpur, Gorakhpur and Varanasi, for the dates of June 14, 15 and 16. The red patch over the region for June 14 and 15 shows that climate change made the high temperatures here at least three times more likely. Credit: Climate Central

The fact that these extreme temperatures occurred along with high humidity is unusual and contributed to the severity of the event, the researchers said in their analysis. In addition to UP, most locations across India experienced significant CSI levels during the same period.

“We see again and again that climate change dramatically increases the frequency and intensity of heat waves, one of the deadliest weather events that exist,” Friederike Otto, a researcher at Imperial College London and co-lead of the World Weather Attribution (WWA), said in a press release. “Our most recent WWA study has shown that this has been recognised in India, but implementation of heat action plans is slow. It needs to be an absolute priority adaptation action everywhere.”

Lapses in heat plan implementation?

Heat action plans are documents that list preparatory, adaptive and responsive measures for government departments to tackle the heat and its impacts. UP is one of the 18 states to have a state-level heat action plan, per a recent report that analysed 37 heat action plans at the city, district and state levels.

The state developed its heat action plan in 2022. The 2023 Heat Action Plan is being updated with the institutional collaboration of IIPH-Gandhinagar and UNICEF, as per a report.

UP’s standard operating procedure for heat waves identifies heatwave responses, including related preparedness and actions at the district level. It includes operating procedures to undertake these response actions. It also lists the lead and support agencies responsible for heatwave response actions.

Some reports have raised concerns regarding lapses in the implementation of the state’s heat action plan.

A senior official at the State Disaster Management Authority, who did not want to be named, told The Wire that the state’s heat action plan, which was developed in 2022 has been implemented this year and is currently in the “during heat wave” phase. Data is being collected from districts to obtain information regarding its implementation, so it is “too early” to tell if there were any lapses in its implementation during the ongoing heatwave in the state, the official added.

Several stakeholders including the district administrations and health department are also involved in its implementation, the official said.

The combination of extreme heat and humidity during heat waves is particularly dangerous for humans, and even more so in urban contexts where the ‘heat island’ effect can further increase temperatures, said Mariam Zachariah, a researcher at Imperial College London and WWA. “Unless carbon emissions are rapidly reduced, these life-threatening events will become more frequent and intense.”

Rivers dry up, agriculture affected

Meanwhile, as per Bihar’s water resources department, more than 30 rivers in the state have dried up, reported Hindustan Times. Water levels in several others including the Falgu in Jehanabad and Lakhandei in Muzaffarpur are below gauge level due to the prolonged heatwave and delayed monsoon, it said.

Between June 1 and June 20, Bihar recorded an 81% rainfall deficit, getting only 14.4 mm of rainfall as against a normal rainfall of 81.5 mm during this time. The rain deficit and the prolonged heat wave have also affected the sowing of paddy seedlings with just 31% of overall transplantation done so far across nine divisions, officials of the state agriculture department told Hindustan Times.

Not Just Chennai, India’s Drought Situation Is Far Worse Than We Realise

By the end of the last monsoon, it was clear that almost half the country would be heading towards a drought.

The Chennai water crisis has suddenly spluttered all over television channels and media reports. ‘A city gone dry’, ‘man-made crisis’, ‘21 cities to run out of groundwater’, ‘no drips, no drops’, and ‘self-inflicted water scarcity’, cry out the news headlines. So much so that Leonardo DiCaprio, the Hollywood actor, recently took to Instagram to highlight the acute water shortage in the southern city.

There is no doubt that Chennai is facing a water crisis. However, there were clear signals of drought-like conditions not just in Chennai but across south India as early as the beginning of this year, and the same was reported by The Wire.

On January 16, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) released a ‘Statement on Climate in India during 2018’, which pointed out that rainfall during the last northeast monsoon season, between October and December, over the country had been “substantially below normal” – only 56% of the long-term average. And this, it said, was the sixth lowest since 1901.

The Met office had further noted that except for Kerala, all the other four meteorological subdivisions in the southern peninsula — coastal Andhra, Rayalaseema, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, and south interior Karnataka — had received deficient rainfall.

Because of drought, farmers and cattle herders in Karnataka are now facing fodder shortage. Photo: Nidhi Jamwal

Early this year, three of the four reservoirs supplying water to Chennai had gone dry and water cuts had been introduced. It is claimed that now all the four reservoirs – Chembarambakkam, Poondi, Red Hills and Cholavaram – are “almost empty”.

Even though the southwest monsoon is slowly picking up pace to cover large parts of the country, water woes in Chennai, and some other parts of south India may remain a matter of concern because these regions receive a major chunk of their annual rainfall from the northeast monsoon (October to December) and not the southwest monsoon (June to September).

Also read: Digging For Water in Tamil Nadu

For instance, Tamil Nadu and the Union territory of Puducherry, which together form one meteorological sub-division, receive almost 50% of their annual rainfall during the northeast monsoon season, which is still three months away.

But even if we were to look beyond Chennai, the water scenario is anything but comfortable across the country. As per the South Asia Drought Monitor, maintained by the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhi Nagar (IITG), at present, more than 44% area of the country is facing drought-like conditions, of which over 17% is facing ‘severe dry’ conditions (see map). Several of these areas are facing successive droughts and may not recover even after a ‘normal’ monsoon this year.

Source: South Asia Drought Monitor

Last year, both northeast monsoon and southwest monsoon rains were ‘below normal’, which is why drought conditions are now being seen in large parts of the country.

The drought conditions were further aggravated when this year’s pre-monsoon season, March to May, registered a cumulative rainfall departure of minus 24% (see graph).

Pre-monsoon rainfall between March and May in 2019. Source: India Meteorological Department.

Against the normal onset date of June 1, the southwest monsoon arrived over Kerala on June 8 this year. Thereafter, the progress of monsoon has been slow. It hit Mumbai only on June 25, the most delayed it has been in the last 45 years.

As of June 26, of the total 36 meteorological subdivisions in the country, 31 are in ‘deficient’ and ‘large deficient’ rainfall category. So far, there is a deficit of minus 36% rainfall in this southwest monsoon season.

According to the Central Water Commission, which monitors the water storage status of 91 reservoirs in the country, live storage available in these reservoirs is 27.265 billion cubic metre, which is 17% of total live storage capacity of these reservoirs. Last year, this figure was 29.699 billon cubic metre.

Farmers in drought-hit states are on their tenterhooks, as kharif sowing has been delayed. But this drought has not come out of the blue. Take the case of Maharashtra, where in October 2018 itself the state government had declared drought in several talukas. Officially, 28,524 villages in 151 talukas of the state are declared drought-hit. Maharashtra has a total of 358 talukas, hence more than 42% of the state is drought-affected.

As of June 26, Maharashtra has only 5.96% water in all its dams. The situation is the worst in the Aurangabad division – the especially drought-prone Marathwada region is in this division – which has only 0.47% water left. Of the nine major dam projects in Aurangabad division, eight are dry.

A traditional tank on the outskirts of Bengaluru being desilted to capture rainwater and help recharge groundwater. Photo: Nidhi Jamwal

Karnataka is also facing an unprecedented situation. It has declared drought in 100 talukas spread across 24 districts. The state faces an estimated loss of Rs 16,500 crore.

Last November, Jharkhand government had declared 126 blocks in 18 districts as drought-hit and sought a relief package of Rs 8.16 billion from the Centre. Jharkhand has a total of 260 blocks in its 24 districts. Thus, half the state is in the grip of an acute drought.

A month later, in December, Gujarat government also declared 3,367 villages under 51 talukas of its 16 districts as drought-hit.

Other states such as Bihar and Andhra Pradesh have declared drought, too.

Early this year, the Centre released Rs 6,680 crore as drought relief to four states —Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. Of these, Maharashtra received the lion’s share of Rs 4,700 crore followed by Karnataka which received Rs 950 crore. Andhra Pradesh got Rs 900 crore and Gujarat, 130 crore.

Development in groundwater withdrawal in selected countries.

Experts point out that the drought has turned acute not only because of poor monsoon rainfall last year, but also due to mindless extraction and mismanagement of groundwater. Villagers in drought-hit Marathwada narrate how even during the worst drought 0f the early 1970s, the situation was not this critical because even if no water fell from the sky, there would plenty of water under the ground.

Now, there are pockets in Marathwada where no groundwater can be found even at depths of 1,000 feet. Several villages have turned into ‘ghost villages’. People have locked their houses and migrated due to lack of water.

In spite of the wide spatial spread of acute drought across the states, the situation has not received the kind of attention it deserved from as early as the end of the last southwest monsoon.

By the end of the last northeast monsoon season, it was clear that almost half the country would be heading towards a drought. Management of existing water sources could have averted the present water crisis.

Also read: We Parched the Country to Quench the City, and Chennai Still Cries for Help

All eyes are now set on the southwest monsoon, which is delayed and is slowly picking up pace. In its second long range forecast issued on May 31, the IMD had forecast a ‘normal’ monsoon rainfall of 96% of the long period average (LPA) over the country as a whole with a model error of plus or minus 4%.

The LPA is the weighted average of rainfall that India has received in the southwest monsoon season (June to September) from 1951 to 2000, and is pegged at 89 cm.

The southwest monsoon season is almost a month in and the country already has a rainfall deficit of minus 36%. Even if the monsoon now picks up pace, farming in the southern peninsula are expected to be affected due to delayed sowing, as a large number of them are dependent on this rainfall for farming.

Last year’s below normal southwest monsoon rainfall, followed by deficient northeast monsoon rainfall, and this year’s drought situation across half the country is a brutal reminder that both the government and the people must work together and conserve every drop of rain that the two monsoons shower on our lands every year.

Nidhi Jamwal is environment editor with Gaon Connection.

Centre’s New Drought Manual Likely to Aggravate Farm Distress

Strict parameters set by the central government have made it tougher for the states to declare a drought and seek relief funds from New Delhi.

Credit: PTI

The Indian government is leaving no stone unturned to fight the occurrence of drought in the country. The Manual for Drought Management, released in December 2016 by the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, prescribes “new scientific indices and parameters” for a “more accurate assessment of drought” in the country.

The five categories of indices listed in the new manual, which include rainfall, agriculture, soil moisture, hydrology and remote sensing (health of crops), are expected to help the state governments make scientific assessment of drought rather than “rely on the traditional practice such as annewari / paisewari / girdawari system of eye estimation and crop cutting experiments”.

However, representatives of farmers’ groups and agriculture sector experts say that strict parameters for drought declaration in the new manual will make things worse for the farmers, especially in drought-prone areas of the country. In Maharashtra’s Vidarbha and Marathwada regions, which are infamous for farmer suicides and consecutive droughts, implementation of the new drought manual may act as the last nail in the coffin of the farmers, who are already taking their own lives due to repeated crop failure, indebtedness and other factors.

Droughts will be underreported

“At the outset, the new manual acknowledges that drought has complex nature and varying characteristics that manifest across different agro-climatic regions in different ways. But, it then goes on to prescribe very strict indices for declaration of drought across six climatic zones in the country,” K.J. Joy, senior fellow with Pune-based Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM) told VillageSquare.in. “If the new manual is followed, then several droughts in the country will go unreported.”

He is not wrong. So far, the Maharashtra government used to follow the paisewari system (originally referred to as annewari) for declaring a drought. In the paisewari system, if there is a rainfall deficit and the crop yield is less than 50% of the average of ten years, then that is considered a drought year. If the paisewari system is applied, then at present 9,000 villages in Maharashtra, including 3,500 villages in Marathwada, have reported paisewari less than 50 paise.

But, officially these 9,000 villages are not drought-affected because last October the state government issued a government resolution in line with the Centre’s new drought manual, and adopted new indices to declare drought in the state.

As per a recent news report, over 136 talukas or administrative blocks had approached the state government to be declared drought hit, but only three talukas from Gondia district have made it to the category of moderate drought under the new criteria prescribed in the manual.

Moderate drought is no longer eligible for relief funds from the Centre. The 2016 manual makes it clear that only if the calamity is of “severe nature” can the state governments submit a memorandum for financial assistance under the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF). For mild and moderate droughts, the states have to shell out their own funds.

A farmer walks through a paddy field at Tannaurah village in the northern Indian state of Punjab August 1, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Ajay Verma

Passing the buck

“Rather than finding ways of managing and mitigating droughts, the Indian government seems keen to not identify the droughts. The Centre has conveniently pushed the burden of drought relief on the state governments,” Vijay Jawandhia, a farm activist from Vidarbha, told VillageSquare.in. He is also the founder member of Shetkari Sanghatana and president of the Kisan Co-ordination Committee. “The new drought manual is a mockery of the farmers. It is a clear message from the government that farmers have to fend for themselves.”

Though a bit late, the Maharashtra government has taken an exception to the strict parameters in the 2016 drought manual and is expected to soon approach the Centre with a demand for relaxation in the indices. Karnataka government, too, has raised objections to the implementation of strict parameters in the new drought manual.

Expunged

Meanwhile, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has expunged the word drought from its vocabulary “to do away with or re-define terms that are not scientifically precise”. Instead of using terms like ‘All India Drought Year’ or ‘All India Severe Drought Year’, the IMD has adopted ‘deficient’ year or ‘large deficient’ year, news reports say.

About 68% of the cropped area in India is vulnerable to droughts. Of this, over 33% of the area in the country receives less than 750 mm of mean annual rainfall and is classified as “chronically drought-prone”. Another 35% area receives mean annual rainfall of 750-1,125 mm and is classified as “drought-prone”. The drought-prone areas are confined primarily to the arid, semi-arid, and sub-humid regions of peninsular and western India. Some of the major drought years in the country were 1966, 1972, 1979, 1987, 2002, 2009, 2014 and 2015.

So far, the states had been following their own system of drought assessment and drought declaration. According to the new manual, for a drought to fall under the severe category and be eligible for central assistance, the state government has to prove severity in three out of the four main impact indicators.

Relief funds disappear

The 2016 drought manual is an offshoot of the November 2009 Manual for Drought Management of the central farm ministry. The drought indicators included in the 2016 manual were also part of the 2009 manual. But they were more like guidelines than mandatory parameters.

The biggest difference between the 2009 and 2016 manuals is financial assistance for drought relief. The 2009 manual had two streams of financing relief expenditure — Calamity Relief Funds (CRF) and National Calamity Contingency Fund (NCCF).

The CRF envisaged the contribution of Central and the concerned state governments in the ratio of 3:1 for a fund to be kept outside the government account so that there was no cash flow constraint for initiating relief operations. The NCCF provided funds for natural calamities of severe nature when the balances available in the CRF were not adequate for meeting relief expenditures. The Ministry of Finance released assistance from both the CRF and NCCF.

In sharp contrast, in the 2016 manual, the Central government has washed its hands off drought relief. “A Memorandum for assistance under the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) will be submitted within a week of the declaration of drought only if the calamity is of a severe nature,” reads the new manual.

“The indices for declaring severe drought are so strict that such droughts will occur only once in 10-15 years. Thus, the Centre won’t have to release any drought relief funds,” Mohan Gojamgunde, an agricultural officer at Latur, told VillageSquare.in. “The states will continue to struggle with recurring droughts — mild and moderate — and the plight of farmers will increase manifold.”

“It is no secret that the changing climate and vagaries of nature are increasing incidence of droughts. Farmers and agriculture sector needs additional support from the government. But, the Centre is conveniently transferring its responsibilities to the states, which is a shame, and must be challenged,” said Jawandhia.

While hunger has stalked the country, India has been a significant net exporter of food grains to the world market, where such grains are used as feed grains for animals in rich countries. Credit: Reuters/Amit Dave

Credit: Reuters/Amit Dave

Indicator issues

Apart from the financial issues, there are indicator- and parameter-related problems with the new drought manual. Unlike the 2009 drought manual, the new manual does not take note of different types of droughts – meteorological (deficiency of precipitation), hydrological (deficiencies in surface and subsurface water supplies), and agricultural (inadequate soil moisture leading to crop stress) droughts.

“The manual integrates meteorological, agricultural and hydrological drought which is not necessarily the situation always. Though meteorological drought is a precursor to the other two, rainfall deficit in a monsoon season can recover due to back to back strong monsoon low pressure systems during months like August-September,” Akshay Deoras, an independent meteorologist, told VillageSquare.in. “In such a case, subdued rainfall in the first half of the season impacts the agriculture and triggers agriculture drought. However, the rainfall recovery is so strong that there can’t be a meteorological or hydrological drought, but agricultural drought remains.”

Maharashtra has experienced such a situation during the southwest monsoon of 2015 and 2017. Unless this point is understood, farmers will continue to suffer even if seasonal rainfall is normal, warned Deoras.

Joy raises strong objections to the parameter of sown area used in the new drought manual. “The manual says that only if less than 50% area is sown can it be an indicator of drought. This is far removed from the field reality,” he told VillageSquare.in. “Crop sown area cannot be taken as a measure of drought. Farmers tend to sow the crops in hope that rains will come. They even undertake second to third time sowing as they are desperate to have a good crop.”

Re-sowing woes

Jawandhia informed that last year he had to re-sow cotton on his farm because of delay in the monsoon rains. And he was not alone. As per news reports, over 2.3 million hectares of farmland in the state faced the threat of re-sowing last year.

Meteorologists also point out problem with the definition of a dry spell in the 2016 manual. “The manual rigidly defines dry spells assuming its impact on agriculture would be similar everywhere and in all time scales. This is not true,” said Deoras. Factors like type of soil, type of crop, temperatures and vegetative state equally matter. Hence, even a dry spell of two weeks with above normal temperatures can hamper the crop growth and cause irreversible crop damage, he warned.

Crop productivity is an important factor, but is missing from the manual. “Soil moisture categories are too rigid. A 25 percent soil moisture in semi-arid area of Marathwada will not have the same impacts as 25 percent soil moisture in heavy rainfall area like Konkan,” said Joy. “There is no mention of water equity in the drought manual. It fails to note that almost 80% of the irrigation water in Maharashtra is used by water-intensive sugarcane crops. Such crops and water inequity is one of the reasons for droughts in Maharashtra.”

Dushkaal he aasmani nasoon, sultani aahe is a famous Marathi saying, which means that drought does not happen due to lack of rains, but due to poor governance. It fits well in the context of the new drought manual, which will further push farmers to the brink.