O ne cannot speak of the climate of India, or else one must speak of several different Indias. The subcontinent has eight climatic zones all of which only have the monsoon rains in common and even the monsoon comes to different parts of the country at different times. But in the recent years, in addition to the vagaries of monsoon, extreme weather events such as droughts, floods and cyclones have become more frequent and more severe. The super-cyclone that tore through Orissa - (with a wind speed of more than 260 kilometers, 73 per cent faster than past cyclones in the region) damaged 1.83 million homes and 1.8 million acres of paddy crops. The super cyclone and its associated floods caused large-scale devastation to human life.It was not a mere natural disorder - man-made ecological crisis unleashed by the combined impacts of deforestation, industrialization and climate change might have added to this disaster. During the severe drought of 2002, those affected heavily were the northern states of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and many states of southern and eastern India namely Karnataka, Kerala, Orissa and Chhatisgarh. The worst impact of the low rainfall situation has been on the kharif crop, which has been ruined in most of the affected states. The situation of the drought is best tackled by a common approach of Watershed Management, which aims at the overall development of the region, along with measures for mitigation of droughts. Adaptation to Adverse Impacts of Extreme Weather EventsIt is important to take appropriate steps to identify such threats and take measures in order to minimize destruction from such events by increasing the resilience and coping capacity of the communities to adapt to extremities due to climate change. It will reduce the risk of loss of human lives, infrastructure, bio-diversity and their various sustainable livelihoods. The adaptive capacity of a resources system or human society depends on the resilience of these systems. Resilience in the face of climate change, as with resilience to present day hazards such as floods and droughts, therefore, depends on the scale, intensity and the rate of change of the climate system. Resilience is the ability of a system to adjust to new circumstances and to return to a predisturbed state without incurring any lasting fundamental change. Long term adaptation to climate change requires anticipatory actions which would require considerable investment of capital, labour and time, hence the diversion from scarcely available resources, existing services and infrastructure. Such resource constrains are more prevalent in developing countries. Communities participation is very important in the success of any adaptation programme design, implementation, and evaluation. Collaborative management agreements between governments and local communities should be encouraged. Under these agreements, communities would assume more responsibility for sound management. The developing countries such as India can not spare their meagre resources, otherwise marked for developmental work to address climate change. However, integrating the national development programmes with the programmes for adaptation to climate change may provide a viable alternative for India. Community involvement is essential for effective disaster management. The traditional measures adopted by the communities to address droughts and other events should be analyzed and these should be integrated into policies and programmes to increase the resilience of the communities to minimize the losses due to extreme events. Policymakers and the general public need to be educated about climate change and its impacts. Planners should consider both traditional and modern technologies in the design and implementation of policies. q |