Heat, fire and drought in India

Source(s): United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction

GENEVA, 20 MAY, 2016 - The June monsoon rains cannot come soon enough for India where forest fires have been raging and two consecutive years of drought are affecting some 330 million people across large swathes of the country.

Over 20,000 forest fires have been recorded so far this year, consuming almost 3,500 hectares of forest. Suicide rates among farmers remain alarmingly high in drought affected parts of the country. The Central Water Commission reports that major reservoirs are 79 percent empty.

Yesterday the city of Phalodi in India's Rajasthan state broke the country's temperature records after registering 51C, the highest since records began, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD). The new record comes amid a heatwave across India.

The previous record for the hottest temperature stood at 50.6C in 1956. The heatwave has hit much of northern India, where temperatures have exceeded 40C for weeks.

The four-month South-West Monsoon will bring above normal rainfall in India this year, according to the IMD forecast. The rainfall will be fairly well distributed across the country.

The central government’s Relief and Rehabilitation Deparment reports that 338 farmers have taken their own lives in the drought-affected Marathwada region of Maharashtra State. Last year the National Crime Records Bureau of India reported 5,650 farmer suicides.

As much as 79% of India’s farmland relies on flooding during the monsoon season and over 85% of all water use in India is for agricultural irrigation. The El Niño fuelled drought is worsening conditions in many agricultural regions which have suffered three years of drought impacting greatly on the rural poor.

In the eastern state of Bihar, following the fire deaths of 66 people in six villages, the State government imposed a ban on cooking in villages between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. The use of fire during religious ceremonies is also banned. The government says the heat has killed more than 300 people, including 219 in southern Telengana State. A heat wave in India last May was responsible for at least 2,248 deaths.

In 2013, UNISDR’s Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction stated that “wild-land fires may now be leading to a loss of ecosystem services in the range of US$146 billion to US$191 billion per year.”

Agricultural drought is not only due to lack of rainfall but refers to the availability of sufficient water in the soil to satisfy the need of crops and is impacted by factors such as temperature and wind which influence evaporation and transpiration and the capacity of the soil to hold moisture.

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