Is flooding in South Asia getting worse and more frequent?

Abstract

South Asia is drained by some of the most flood‐prone rivers in the world. Flooding during the monsoon season is the most recurring, widespread and disastrous natural hazard in South Asia that results in enormous social, economic and environment consequences every year. Several massive floods have occurred in the recent decades causing huge economic losses and human suffering. On average, the total damage is close to USD 1 billion annually. To answer the question whether flooding in South Asia is getting worse and more frequent, all available data were considered: the annual peak discharge data for major rivers, post‐1985 information on floods from the global archive of large floods and palaeoflood records from nine Indian rivers. According to the global archive data, 372 large and 55 extreme flood events have occurred since 1985. Although there is no significant trend, all types of data point to clustering of large floods. Palaeoflood records show that modern floods (post‐1950) have higher flood levels than the late Holocene floods. Notwithstanding the limitations of data, there is enough evidence to conclude that (1) incidences of flood‐generating extreme rainfall event are rising and (2) human interventions have made the recent floods more destructive.