Climate Change And Mitigation Measures For The Hydrometerological Disaster In Himachal Pradesh, India- In Light Of Dams

Continuing climate change is predicted to lead to major changes in the climate of the Himalayan region. Casualties and damage due to hazards in mountain regions will increase irrespective of global warming, especially where populations are growing and infrastructure is developed at exposed locations. But climate change will definitely increase risk due to the fact that expected increases of heavy rainfall, heat waves, and glacier melt will amplify hazards in Himalayan region. The rapid release of melt water and rainfall may combine to trigger debris flows and flash flood in higher ranges, including the formation of potentially dangerous lakes. These lakes may breach suddenly, resulting in discharge of huge volume of water and debris. Himachal Pradesh had experienced a large number of incidences of Hydro-meteorological disaster (HMD) since its inception in 1971. Flash flood of March 1975, Dec 1988, Satluj flash flood of August 2000, July 2001, June 2005, Flash flood of July 2005 and Cloud burst in June 2013 are the major natural calamities in Himachal Pradesh. Due to continuous HMD brought heavy toll to the state as the loss was estimated in several thousand millions of rupees and also killed several hundreds of people besides large number of cattle heads. Through this paper, we carried out a comprehensive study of past HMD and mitigation measures, solution and concluded that these disaster are by their nature difficult to predict and control but it is possible to reduce the risk to lives and property through develop mitigation strategy and plan to construct dams/barrages with awareness and knowledge among local communities about the impacts of global warming, natural disaster and the threat to the ecosystem, communities, and infrastructure are generally inadequate.