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Today we will discuss about the real reasons behind the impact of extreme events
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that are becoming the new normals.
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The impacts of extreme events like floods, waterlogging, landslides etc.
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are now a regular phenomena all over the world.
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Nowadays these events are considered as certain rather than uncertain.
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Why?
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The number of extreme events that has taken place in the last 10 years is far more
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compared to that in the last 50 years.
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So it's a clear sign that there is some abnormalities or some
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vulnerabilities present in the climate of the recent times.
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It is not only in India,
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it is observed everywhere in the world,
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be it Japan,
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be it China,
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be it Philippines,
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be it America,
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be it Europe,
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be it in Australia, everywhere this type of extremities is observed.
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And after an extreme climatic event like storm or heavy rainfall,
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the result is more dangerous than the events itself.
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For example,
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after a cyclone or a hurricane or some extreme climatic events,
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what follows is heavy rainfall,
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heavy downpour.
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So that result in flooding,
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water logging of different areas,
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landslides in hilly regions and which causes
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lots of people to either lose their settlements or even some of them are killed in
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this as the effect of these extremities.
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So overall we can say the number of refugees
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due to natural disasters are increasing steadily from the last 10 years.
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The increase is very fast now,
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increase in number is very very rapid now compared to the initial 5 years of the
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last 10 years.
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Take the example of some landslides,
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30th July 2024 Kerala landslide in which more than 300 people get killed and many
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more has been displaced from their homeland or where they had stayed from their
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birth or from their childhood.
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In case of Himachal Pradesh also, in 11th August 2024, massive landslides were observed.
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Flooding is observed in Germany, Afghanistan, Oman, Uruguay, Argentina.
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Cyclonic storms, these are not the effect.
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Cyclonic storms are the cause.
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Like Rimal, on May 25-27, it
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It devastated Eastern India, East and North East India also.
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Then comes Hamun, October, I think, actually it has come before Ramal.
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Hamun, Hamun has occurred from October 23 to 25 in the year of 2023.
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Before that, Bipotjoy, June 6 to 16.
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Before that is Moka, 11 May to 14 May.
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And as a result of cyclonic storm, all cyclonic storm is followed by a heavy rainfall, heavy downpour.
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And for this downpour actually these floods take place,
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flooding take place as well as waterlogging take place.
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As for example is the Bengaluru waterlogging in 12th August 2024 after a heavy downpour.
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Yes, that is not a byproduct of the cyclonic storms.
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The downpour is so devastating that it created massive water logging all over the city of Bengaluru.
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And in the same date, in Gurugram also, water logging has taken place.
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And this list is unending.
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But if we observe carefully, we can see in the last five years,
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All these vulnerabilities or natural disasters are taking place in the month of June to October.
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And you can confidently bookmark these three,
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this June,
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July,
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August,
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September,
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October,
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this four month where extreme events will take place.
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So extreme events that are once considered
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to be rarest of rare phenomenon which causes widespread disruptions are now
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increasingly commonplace and regarded as normal apparatus,
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at least during those four months.
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Now my question is, what is the real cause of such events?
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Whether it is the effect of El Nino or La Nina,
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whether it is the impact of climate change,
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the regular pattern of climate is changing,
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or it is a result of rapid urbanization,
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or is it a result of wide scale deforestation,
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or is it a result of uncontrolled extraction of natural resources,
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or you may also attribute it to the large scale conversion of land use.
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The forest land is converted into agricultural land.
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Agricultural land is converted into rural land.
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Rural land is converted into urban land.
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So what is the main cause?
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So to explain the real cause or to point out or identify the real cause of these events,
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you must understand that there is two aspects to this.
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One is the effect.
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Effects are what?
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Flooding, water logging, landslides.
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And what are the causes?
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Heavy downpour, thunderstorms, cyclones, hurricanes.
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Generally, all thunderstorms, all cyclones and hurricanes follows heavy downpour.
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first the storm will take place, then heavy rainfall will occur.
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Now the problem is when this heavy downpour takes place,
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the flooding,
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water logging,
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all landslides take place also.
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Now I will say why.
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You know, the main culprit is
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The drainage system of our watersheds.
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By drainage network, I refer to the rivers, channels, canals, right?
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The entire river network of the watersheds,
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including the channels,
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canals,
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and the sewage network of the cities or of the rural areas also.
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They are clogged.
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They are blocked.
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The water cannot flow through it smoothly.
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Why?
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Due to the decrease in depth from increased sedation.
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Due to erosion, what happens is that eroded soil comes with the water and at the low
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low flow of the river,
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or what I can say,
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not in the low flow,
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from upstream to downstream,
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near to downstream,
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as there is a change in the velocity of flow,
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those soil particles which are suspended and carried from upstream,
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they are deposited due to this change in flow rate.
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which decreases the depth of the channels canals river network all this and also
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the sewage network now the main reason of the blockage of sewage network is not
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only the suspended soil particles the main reason of blockage of sewage network is
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all the organic and inorganic waste that is generated from industrial domestic as
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well as
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agricultural outputs or agricultural entities.
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Industries release a lot of toxic waste into the river channels.
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In that toxic waste or what which we say as wastewater,
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lots of amount of inorganic waste is there like plastics,
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then what I said,
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plastic glasses,
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plastic bottles,
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and also there are clothings,
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tissues,
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and lots of things there,
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ribbons,
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lots of inorganic waste is there like this.
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And from domestic,
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there are lots of domestic waste released,
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agricultural entities release fertilizers or pesticides,
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mixed water into the river canals,
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So all these actually add to the congestion of the sewage network or the irrigation
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canals or irrigation channels.
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Right?
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So what I mean is,
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if I make an analogy with the blood flow in our arteries or the blood vessels,
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there also when fats are deposited,
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when the fats build up in our arteries or blood vessels,
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what happens?
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The blood vessels become clogged and blocked.
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It is implied that if you clog the artery, it will be blocked for any type of flow.
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So the blood flow or the flow rate of blood become compromised.
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It decreases.
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As a result, what can happen?
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As a result, blood can flow in the reverse order.
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instead of flowing from up to down,
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blood can flow down to up because he's not getting any path in the downstream.
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So it may backflow, right?
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And these backflow of blood is one of the major reason for heart or cerebral attack, if I am not wrong.
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And sometimes also this due to this congestion in the blood channels,
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what happens enough amount of blood does not reaches into our heart or into our
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brain so that also causes cerebral or heart attack right and this congestion also
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can cause ruptures in the blood vessel because you know if the blood cannot flow
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through the vessel what it will try it will it will try to push its way through the
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blood vessels
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as a result if the amount of blood is very high then it can break the blood vessels
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or damage the blood vessels right so this may also happen and another thing can
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happen is blood spill as you got not allowing the blood to flow away what will
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happen it will try to overflow so same as the flow of blood through the blood
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vessels or arteries or
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Same thing when water flows through a drainage network,
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if you block that drainage or if you decrease the depth of that network or the flow path,
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then what will happen when large amount of water comes into it,
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comes into that drain,
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it will either overflow or it will try to push through it through the network and
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it may try to
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As it is not getting its main path clear due to those blocking materials, what it will try to do?
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It will try to create a lateral flow.
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It will try to keep pressure into the walls of the candle,
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right on the perimeter of the candle,
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wetted perimeter.
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And as a result, what happens?
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It will damage the walls of the candle also.
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Or it may cause, due to this excessive pressure, it may cause landslides.
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if the canals are located into the hills.
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And also, there is one other thing it can cause is, you know, it can backflow.
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So this backflow means the water will start to flow in the reverse order.
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And as a result, ultimately the water will come back to the source or come back to the location
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from where it is released.
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So ultimately it can cause waterlogging, right?
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And when water overflows the canals due to the less depth than required, so that actually causes flood.
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because if you are if you are flowing water through a channel and if you are
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blocking its forward path forward flow path then what it will do it will try to
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come laterally and as a result it will not get the lateral flow because there is
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wall there wall of the candle is there so it will ultimately over spills into the
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water into the watershed into the land area and it will ultimately causes the flood
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So,
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the problem is when extreme events like thunderstorms or cyclones or hurricanes
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take place followed by heavy rainfall or simple heavy downpour is taking place,
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the amount of water becomes very high.
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But the path to carry out the water is not sufficient due to clogging or blocking
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of the channel from waste products or for deposition of silt into the channel and
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As a result, the depth has decreased.
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So flooding or water logging or landslide take place.
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Now to mitigate the frequency of occurrence of flooding,
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waterlogging and landslide,
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what we have to do is we need to desilt the drainage system and also we have to
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expand the drainage network.
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So the desilt will allow the excess water to flow through the existing network because it will get more
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area to flow and this additional flow path,
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if you increase the drainage network,
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it will provide the additional path and as the water is also additional,
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the water can easily flow through the additional path of the network.
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Okay, now comes to the problem.
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We all know, we may know or we all know that if we provide, if we desilt
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or expand our drainage network, flooding, water logging can be avoided.
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But the problem is our governments have turned blind to such proposals.
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I don't know, but I think this is the main reason why we are not taking care of our drainage network.
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We are neither desilting it, nor we are creating new networks.
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The existing network is there.
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If you take the example of Kolkata,
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which is the metro city in East India,
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the same British-era sewage network is still working.
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After independence,
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some minimum amount of network was added there,
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but ultimately,
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in the last 10 to 12 years,
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there is no development.
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There is no additional path for water to flow there.
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There is no distillation work going on.
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But number of people staying in Calcutta is increasing.
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It is increasing at an exponential rate.
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And they are releasing waste at exponential rate.
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But there is no way
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you can release that waste through the existing channel network.
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So, what happens?
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All are depositing in the channel network itself.
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So, the depth is decreasing.
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Water is not getting clear path to flow.
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Now, what happened is water logging.
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In city, you will face water logging.
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In rural area, you can face flooding.
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In hilly region, you will face flooding.
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landslides.
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So that is the case in Himachal Pradesh,
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Kerala also,
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in Venar,
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where the landslide occurred on the 30th July 2024.
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You know, in Kerala, Venar, it is first becoming one of the most popular tourist places.
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And in an uncontrolled manner, in that Venar region,
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They are making resorts.
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They are increasing homestays.
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They are deforesting.
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And they are developing hotels and restaurants and all this.
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Because there are number of tourists has increased manifold in the last five years at those areas.
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But what is happening is you are not increasing the drainage network.
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You are not desilting your river.
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You are not desilting your irrigation channels and canals.
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As a result, what is happening is that excess water is coming due to that downpour.
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Heavy downpour takes place.
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For one day, heavy rainfall has occurred in that Wehner area.
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But what happened is there is no flow, sorry, no path for the excess water to flow.
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And yes, existing network cannot withstand this excess water.
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Because they are designed as per the extreme rainfall or the peak rainfall of the 100 years or 50 years.
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But nowadays, this heavy rainfall is breaking all the records.
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So those rainfall are more than 100 year return period.
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200 year return period or more than that.
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So they are extremely rare.
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Earlier, we do not face such kind of rainfall, but nowadays it is common.
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We are facing every other day during this month of June to September.
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Okay?
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Sorry, June to October.
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So what the result of my discussion or very point,
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very objective of my discussion was to appeal to the governments,
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either state or central,
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to immediately take measures to desilt the river irrigation channels,
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sewage network that are available in all the cities of India.
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or any other parts of the world.
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And also not only desilitation, but you have to add drainage network to your existing drainage network.
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Because the rainfall for which the existing drainage network is designed, this is now overtaken.
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Now this overtaking of peak rainfall of the last 100 years, yes, this can be attributed
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to either El Nino or La Nina effect or impact of climate change or rapid
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urbanization or deforestation or uncontrolled extraction of natural resources.
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Okay.
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But there is a solution.
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You have to use some fund, right?
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And you have to use that fund to develop our drainage system or drainage network.
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So bye for now.
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And let us see what happened.
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Kindly comment with your opinion regarding this situation.
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Thank you and see you next time.
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