{"id":20118931,"date":"2023-07-17T22:49:06","date_gmt":"2023-07-17T17:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thethirdpole.net\/?post_type=opinion&p=118931"},"modified":"2024-04-12T10:01:46","modified_gmt":"2024-04-12T10:01:46","slug":"opinion-are-indian-policymakers-taking-notes-on-climate-adaptation-lessons-from-delhi-floods","status":"publish","type":"opinion","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/opinion-are-indian-policymakers-taking-notes-on-climate-adaptation-lessons-from-delhi-floods\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: The adaptation lessons from Delhi’s floods"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Floods in Delhi have dominated the news cycle<\/a> in India for the last week, setting off political conflicts, and an intense war of words<\/a> in television studios. And yet, what is lost in the high-decibel rhetoric is a clear understanding of what is happening, and why. More importantly, the key governance lessons for what can be done in both the short-term and the long-term to address challenges are being drowned out by politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An excessive focus on Delhi<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are a variety of reasons that the current floods in Delhi have received disproportionate attention. Part of the reason is that New Delhi is the capital city of India, with Delhi being the state in which it is located. Delhi is also governed by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) by an elected legislature while other parts of governance \u2013 including key portfolios such as policing and land allocation<\/a> \u2013 are in the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is in power at the Union government level. Thirdly, the presence of most major media houses in Delhi and television studios<\/a> in the National Capital Region \u2013 which includes Delhi and certain surrounding areas in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan \u2013 means that there is a geographic bias in favour of reporting on issues about Delhi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This disproportionate focus on Delhi obscures the fact that the current rains are a wider phenomenon, in which the rainfall in Delhi alone plays only a small part. According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Delhi received an excess rainfall of 66%<\/a> in the time period of 1-16 July, 2023. But Delhi is a small region \u2013 occupying only 1,483 square kilometres<\/a>. The much larger upstream provinces of Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Uttarakhand received an excess rainfall of 156%, 93%, and 63%, respectively, in the same period. In each of these provinces, many districts are much larger than the total area of Delhi, which means that excess rainfall there has a much bigger impact than the cumulative rainfall in Delhi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n