Flood hazard and disaster

management
 Floods and Flood Disasters
 The inundation of lands by water.

 In the context of disasters, it is appropriate to regard flood as a

hydrogeological hazard.
 In nature, flooding is not always harmful. In fact, it is the way
nature transports soil from the mountains to create fertile
plains for agriculture.
 Floods and Flood Disasters
A flood hazard becomes a flood disaster when the flooding is so
severe that it begins to..
1. kill people and drive them out of their homes,
2. destroy property,
3. ruin crops,
4. dislocate communication systems,
5. waterlog roads,
6. erode mountain slopes,
7. create landslides,
8. Resulting in the reversal of the process of development…….
 Floods and Flood Disasters
9. Bridges get destroyed,
10. Embankments and retaining walls fail,
11. Sewerage systems get dislocated,
12. Ground water gets polluted.
13. Flooding involving turbid waters can drown people and animals
even when water depths are shallow.
 Floods and Flood Disasters cont…
 Flood disasters rank among the most frequent and devastating
disasters.
 They are considered only second to the disasters due to droughts in
terms of their overall impact on the mankind.

floods mean too much of water and droughts mean too little of water.
 Floods and Flood Disasters cont…
 .
 Pakistan Flooding July 2010:one-fifth of the land area of Pakistan got
submerged
 About 9.2 million people were affected of which nearly 5.2 million needed
humanitarian assistance.
 This is comparable in consequence to the July 2011 drought in the Horn of
Africa which affected 11.4 million people.
 2022 floods??
 Causes of Disastrous Flooding

1. cyclonic winds,
2. storm surges,
3. bursting of river banks,
4. invasion by tsunami waves,
5. excessive rainfall
6. poor land management.
 Factors Responsible for Flooding

1. Deforestation,
2. Human manipulation of watersheds,
3. Abnormally high rainfall,
4. Rapid snow melts,
5. Bursting of glacial lakes and of landslide dams,
6. Choking of natural drainage channels,
7. Poorly managed water systems are all responsible for flooding. Rapid and often
unplanned spurt of human settlements in the flood-prone areas is yet another
major cause of flood disasters.
 Flood Disasters and Climate Change
There are various other ways in which we invite floods.

 River diversions,
 Water storage dams,
 inter basin water transfers,
 canals, and
 By flouting (Breaching) the land use plans and land management regulations
and laws.
 Vulnerability to Flooding
People living in places like:-
 low-lying areas,
 poorly drained catchments,
 densely populated towns and cities on river banks, and coastal areas
are highly vulnerable to floods.

 Vulnerability is particularly high when cyclonic floods and

tsunamis invade coastal areas and when cloud bursts swell rivers
which breach their banks.
 Vulnerability to Flooding
 Major disasters occurs when there is

High vulnerability and absence of coping mechanism,

 What are Highly flood prone areas in Pakistan??.

 Types of floods, Flash floods
 1. Flash floods are sudden. The time period ranging from a few
minutes to less than 6 h is generally regarded as sudden although in
many cases, from disaster safety point of view, shorter flooding
time may pose a huge challenge to the emergency response.
Causes :
 Cloud bursts,
 severe thunderstorms,
 tropical cyclones,
 bursting of landslide dams.
 Glacial lake outburst floods
 Types of floods, Flash floods
 The greatest problem Flash floods pose is
 the very short time slot between sounding of
a flood alert and the arrival of the flood.
 A few minutes of time notice is not generally
enough for effective emergency response, but
a few hours of notice may perhaps facilitate
evacuation and save lives.
 Naturally, a flood alert without the estimated
arrival time of actual flood at a given location
is of a very limited use.
 Types of floods, 2. River floods
 2. River floods are the result of sustained rainfall over large areas or of
melting of snow which cause rivers to swell.
 Unlike flash floods they are slow to buildup thereby making disaster response
relatively less challenging.
 Where a river abruptly changes its course because of the rise of river bed level,
the flooding may come as a big surprise to the affected people.
 Coastal floods are often associated with tropical cyclones and tsunamis.
 Wind induced storm surges and high tides aggravate flooding.
 Coastal river system too needs watching.
 Types of floods, Man-Made Floods
 Man-made floods are often the consequence of mindless urbanization.
 There was a time when for centuries our mountains, rivers, flood plains, and wet lands
drained freely because of very little human intervention.
 With the increase of population and mounting pressure on our lands, people began to
cut trees, clear slopes, encroach flood plains, and fill-up natural water bodies to
reclaim land for construction wherever they found the possibility to do so.
 In the process, the freely draining areas got transformed into very poorly drained land
masses. With sustained neglect, many of these areas now face the risk of flood
disasters especially during the rainy session.
 Flood Disasters and Climate Change

 Cities and townships on the river banks are susceptible to

flooding even in the normal times because of the:-
1. Encroachments,
2. Poor land drainage,
3. Human interference.
4. Increasing trends of high intensity rainfalls,
5. cloud bursts,
 Flood Disasters and Climate Change
 Excessive snow melt due to climate change have combined
with river bed rise due to siltation to make rivers highly
flood prone.
 If threats of climate change persist, bursting of river banks
and consequent inundation of urban areas may lead to
higher frequency of flood disaster.
 We may also find added threats to low-lying areas and
coastal areas because of the climate change-induced sea
level rise.
FLOOD MITIGATION MEASURES
Flood Mitigation Measures
Flood mitigation measures must necessarily be fashioned to suit location-specific situations.
The most basic approach is:-
1. To improve land use planning,
2. land management practices,
3. land drainage.
4. Afforestation of denuded lands reduces overland flow and its destructive erosion
potential.
5. Structural measures to check floods include construction of embankment dams with
features to regulate excess flood water, and construction of river bank and coastline
protection works.
Early Warning Against Floods
 Early warning against floods have become increasingly more reliable because of the
advances in the systems and technologies of reliable weather forecasting, mapping, real-
time data analyses and substantial improvement in our ability of data-based decision
making, contingency planning, and in the swiftness of the emergency response.

 It is now possible to improve the lead time for emergency response by efficient use of
information communication technologies including visual media and cell phones.
Hindrance
 Experience has revealed that best of the early warnings have failed in some cases because of
the tardy response of communities due to their lack of understanding of warning signals and
of their role during a declared emergency.
 COMMUNITY AWARENESS
Flood Control Objectives, Pakistan

Flood management planning in Pakistan is being carried out to

essentially cover the following three specific objectives:
 i. To reduce or eliminate damages to existing properties
 ii. To prevent future increase in damages
 iii. and To mitigate the residual hazard
FLOOD PROTECTION FACILITIES IN PAKISTAN

 The existing flood management strategy includes flood flows regulation by

three major reservoirs (Tarbela, Chashma on Indus & Mangla on Jhelum),
 protection of important private & public infrastructure, urban/rural regions
and adjoining agricultural lands located along the rivers banks by flood
embankments and spurs & other interventions,
 Flood Forecasting & Early Warning System, Rescue & Relief measures in
case of flooding situation. As per inventory developed by M/s NESPAK under
Task-B of NFPP- IV studies completed in May 2015, zonal/ regional distribution
of existing flood protection works in the four provinces and federal line
agencies are available
 2010 Floods in Pakistan
 The monsoon of the Year 2010 brought with it the worst flooding in
past 80 years in Pakistan. The unprecedented floods began in July 2010
following heavy monsoon rains in the KP, Sindh, lower Punjab and
Balochistan regions.
 These rains over a large area made the rivers surge and overflow.
According to the Met Department, within a short period of three to four
days, heavy rains fell in the catchment areas of Indus and its tributary
rivers causing heavy floods in River Indus.
 This comprehensively devastated areas from Gilgit-Baltistan to Kotri
Sindh. In the last week of July, unprecedented rains fell in the
catchment areas of Kabul and Swat rivers. Heavy rainfall of more than
200 mm (7.9 inches) was recorded during the four day wet spell of
July 27 to July 30, 2010 in the provinces of KP and Punjab.
 The 2010 floods started on July 22, 2010, after a few hours of
heavy rainfall
 The second spell of flooding took place by unprecedented rains
across the KP before.
 The D.G. Khan and Rajanpur hill torrents also experienced high
flash floods in the last week of July and first week of August
Country-wide losses/Damages due to 2010
floods

 The details of country-wide losses/damages caused due to rain/flood 2010 as

reported by the Provincial Departments and Federal Line Agencies are given in
Table 8
2020 flood

??