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With the increasing unpredictability of weather patterns, Sri Lanka has been facing an increasing frequency of floods. While such floods invariably have an impact on the economy due to disruption of daily life and damage to crops, what is often lost sight of is the impact on the lives of mostly poor and marginalised people. 

The fall out of the recurrent floods are usually felt by people living on the banks of the Kelani and Kalu rivers, while other low lying areas and river basins also succumb to the threat of floods at different times and at regular intervals. While mapping the areas prone to floods does not pose a great challenge to scientists, how to prevent, control and mitigate floods does pose a formidable challenge to experts in the field.

Although the Great Floods that took place in 1948 and 1958 had a devastating impact on the lives and livelihood of people in the North, Central and Eastern provinces, other areas too began to feel the impact of such phenomena as time went on.

In 1992 Colombo too was hit badly as the floodwaters flowed into areas hitherto untouched by flood waters. Urban flooding was largely attributed to unlawful constructions in violation of urban planning regulations as well as unauthorised filling of wetlands for so called development projects.

Flood control and flood mitigation are areas where the State’s response has been comparatively slow and hardly adequate to mitigate the woes of people affected by flood waters. Those who live in these flood prone areas have to leave their homes at regular intervals and often lose their belongings at such times.

Quite often school children lose their school books and flood victims have to be temporarily re-located in public buildings. The Disaster Management Centre  (DMC) provides them with meals until the floods recede and they are able to go back home.

When the next flood hits them the cycle is repeated. These victims are resigned to their fate and hardly voice any protests with regard to the failure of the State to take action to mitigate the impact of floods on their lives.

While on and off there are announcements by ministers and Government officials with regard to flood control schemes such schemes, if any, have not made the lives of people any better. Where such schemes have in fact been implemented preference seems to have been given to urban areas over rural ones.

The Metro Colombo Urban Development Project is one such project supported by the World Bank. The project envisages investment in Colombo’s public spaces, wetlands, and infrastructure to improve its flood resilience, quality of life, and competitiveness. When completed, it is expected that 232,000 residents will have greater protection from flooding and the entire city of more than six million people will benefit from an improved quality of life.

In a presentation to the International Journal of Scientific And Engineering Research on Flood Mitigation Strategies adopted in Sri Lanka, Dr. S. S. Sivakumar, an expert in the field, has set out a few policy guidelines for mitigating the impact of floods in countries such as Sri Lanka. Among these are:

n   Sound watershed management through extensive soil conservation, catchment area treatment, preservation of forests and increasing forest area and construction of check dams

n   Adequate flood cushion to be provided in water storage projects

n   Establishment of an extensive forecasting network, along with regulation of settlement and economic activity in the flood plain zones.

n   Use of structural measures such as embankments and dykes as well as non-structural measures like flood forecasting and warning, flood plain zoning, etc. for the minimisation of losses and reduction in expenditure on flood relief.

It is necessary that while the country adopts long term strategies to manage and control floods, in the short term, policies have to be adopted to mitigate the misery caused to victims of floods in their daily lives.

While such an objective is easier said than done, it is not beyond the ingenuity of experts in the field.

A fast track approach to provide a better quality of life for those living in areas prone to floods is a duty of any caring government.

(javidyusuf@gmail.com)