Disaster Management Dynamics – An Analysis of Chaos from the Flash Flood (2013) in the Fragile Himalayan System

Abstract

Managing a disaster is a very complex issue in which both the people and the affected region of the particular country are involved. In disasters, the vision of reality entails proper understanding of complexity, uncertainty and instability in the backdrop of nonlinear dynamics. Decision making in case of disasters is a nonlinear thread which has to wind its way through various rhythms and systems that range from ground reality to management operations. The Uttarakhand disaster of 2013 is not a simple straight line extension of a house fire or an automobile accident. It is a mixed web of complexity, nonlinearity, instability and chaos. Maintaining hierarchy in decision making and managing a disaster of such magnitude in public domain has been found to be ineffective in operations. The theory of chaos and the science of complexity can lead to better disaster management options. In fact, chaos theory provides viable framework for management of natural disasters. Chaos theory describes how the human society influences the reality. Indeed, in some degrees, the society relevant for the region creates it. In the Indian Himalayas in Uttarakhand state, during the third week of June 2013, intermittent and unprecedented precipitation covering large area led to flash floods and landslides. They carried away everything resulting in colossal loss of life and property. Incoherencies in management occurred mainly because of lack of understanding of nonlinear dynamics and deterministic chaos in natural phenomena and a fixed approach i.e. ‘mode lock-in’ approach in decision making. In this article, the disaster situation is established to have been initiated due to forces of deterministic chaos. On this basis, some suggestions are formulated where help of the chaos theory may prove congenial to decision making.