Floods: Natural or man-made?

The sudden outburst of torrential rain during the past few days has caused widespread floods and several earth-slips in many parts of the country.

Over 270,000 people belonging to about 60,000 families have been affected. Some are still marooned. Some have found temporary shelter in high ground and are accommodated in schools and temples. In its scale, extension and damage caused by the current floods are among the worst in our experience.

As usual the politicians, the administrators and the civil society are working round the clock to provide food and shelter to the affected. As soon as the flood waters recede life would return to ‘normal’ with life going on as if nothing has happened. The grandiose schemes put forward by politicians to effect long-term solutions would gather dust in the boardrooms or drawing rooms until the next flood comes.

As a rule, it is the poorest and the marginalized that get affected worst. Often their houses or ramshackle dwellings would be totally submerged or destroyed together with all their belongings. Just because they live on river embankments and along the coasts they would have no alternative other than putting up shaky huts once again on the same vulnerable terrain.

It would be easy to blame the weather gods for all the misfortunes that come along with rains and floods. It is a moot point, however, whether all this suffering was inevitable or whether at least a part of it could have been avoided.

Floods are not new phenomena. It is a recurrent occurrence. However, it is possible to avert floods by proper planning, with proper flood protection systems which are not unknown in the modern world. The tragedy is that none of the proposed flood protection programs have been implemented. To that extent nature cannot be fully blamed for the present predicament.

The worst affected areas are in the Colombo and Gampaha districts. Ironically these are the relatively better developed districts among those affected by the floods. Obviously there should be something wrong with development if floods are a consequence. It is no secret that indiscriminate land fillings, especially filling of low lying lands which used to hold the excess water during heavy rains is a cause for much of the flooding.

An example is the vast tract of low lying land surrounding the Diyavanna Oya in Rajagiriya, Navala, IDH and Kolonnava areas being indiscriminately filled with no alternative means provided for drainage of excess water. It is a tragedy that the authorities did not do anything even after the worst floods of recent times that took place during the first half of the 1990s when even a marooned Minister was evacuated by navy boats to a safe location.

The Colombo city was much affected not so much by flooding of the Kelani river but due to blocked drains and the construction of unauthorized structures blocking drainage.

As President Mahinda Rajapaksa has underlined there is an urgent need for remedial measures, both short-term and long-term. The Ministries of Environment, Water Supply and Drainage, Local Government and Economic Development should get together along with civic organizations and initiate long-term flood protection strategies and implement them without delay so that the same pathetic tale of woe need not be repeated often.

It is necessary to study the flood pattern which showed some unusual characteristics this time. The reasons for such novel features in the flood pattern as well as the normal features of flooding should be studied and appropriate counter measures should be taken.

A study would show that flooding is due to a combination of natural and man-made causes. While the former could not be controlled the latter could be avoided completely. Also the effects of natural causes could be minimized with proper scientific human intervention. Water management is a science our forefathers had mastered long ago.