Sink or swim? A historic year of floods in South Asia

By Nithin Coca

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“Low-lying developing countries and cities in Asia are facing a 1-2-3 punch,” said Sally Yozell, Director of the Environmental Security Program at The Stimson Center, a Washington D.C., based research center. “Massive storms, flooding, sea level rise, all on top of the social and economic issues that many coastal communities have — it’s extreme.”

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Climate change models predict that, in Asia, rainfall during the wet season will become more concentrated while the dry season becomes longer. “We are talking about some 15 to 20 percent more intense events in terms of the accumulated rainfall,” said Giriraj Amarnath, research group leader for the water risks and disasters program at the International Water Management Institute, based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. “It’s also estimated that these kinds of events are three times more likely, now, due to climate change.”

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“The impact we have seen across parts of Asia this year fits very much with the trends we have been seeing for many years,” said Matthew Cochrane, spokesperson at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. “Today, climate and weather-related events account for nearly nine out of all 10 disasters.”

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CORVI hopes to help cities avoid scenarios, like that took place in Jakarta in 2015, when the Ciliwung river flooded. The capital of Indonesia, and a megacity with approximately 10 million residents in the city and around 34 million in the Greater Jakarta area as of 2018, has been subject to increasingly severe floods due to over-development and groundwater discharge, and embarked on a plan to restore river flow within the city.

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