Abstract
From the beginning of civilisation, human beings have preferred living on the river banks which have been the most vulnerable areas of flood hazards and consequent disasters. During the monsoon period, in many developing countries of south-east Asia, flood hazards and disasters have been a serious challenge for their development. Most of the rivers exceed their normal channel capacity attaining the flood stage and frequently overflow their banks, causing great havoc to the life and property of the people. Flooding is a very serious problem in many districts of West Bengal. The prime concern of delineation of flood-prone areas is to regulate the land use in the flood-prone areas to restrict damage potential and also mitigate the negative effects of floods on people and the economy. In a regulated way, flood-prone areas are required to be developed. Because, on one hand, it is to be ensured that existing hazard and flood damage potential do not increase and new developmental works become a step towards mitigation of disaster risk. In a perspective view, the demarcation and identification of flood-prone areas of different magnitudes, frequencies and return periods on a large-scale map seem to have great importance. Satellite-derived flood maps from 2007 to 2016 have been applied to form a flood frequency map and the same as a group of flood depth maps has been employed to produce the Flood Damage Map for depth data of flood. Finally, the modelling of flood hazards has been directed by envisaging amalgamation of Flood Depth and Flood Affected Frequency. Then the final flood hazard map amalgamated with population and housing data has been used to ascertain the flood disclosure for these two components. Flood hazard analysis in the study area revealed that 24% of the population has been located in high flood hazard zones, where 39% of human settlements are located in different flood hazard zones.
Highlights
A large portion of Paschim Medinipur district in the state of West Bengal in eastern India is vulnerable to flooding
The vulnerability analysis exposed that 24% of the total population in the study area has been exposed to high flood hazard zone and 6.35%, 22.13%, 47.52% of population has been exposed to medium, low and no hazards zones, respectively
21% female population and 23% child population have been exposed to high flood hazard zones
Summary
A large portion of Paschim Medinipur district in the state of West Bengal in eastern India is vulnerable to flooding. The district has four major rivers: Kangsabati, Silabati and Subarnarekha, which have their origin from Chotanagpur and Ranchi plateaus; and Kaliaghai River, which originates in the said district and is very much flood prone in rainy season. All these rivers are commanding huge catchment areas in and outside the district and bring enormous volumes of water during the rainy season. Heavy rainfall in Chotonagpur plateau results in large inflow into the reservoirs of Chandil, Galudi and Durgapur and heavy rain in Bankura and adjacent districts results in large inflow into the reservoir of Kangsabati All these reservoirs have failed to control the flood discharge into the rivers in the later part of the rainy season to control the heavy flows.
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