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Evaluating the 2018 extreme flood hazard events in Kerala, India

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journal contribution
posted on 2020-02-21, 10:18 authored by Preet Lal, Aniket Prakash, Amit Kumar, Prashant K. Srivastava, Purabi Saikia, A.C. Pandey, Parul Srivastava, M.L. Khan

The very high anomalous precipitation (more than 500 mm) and release of water from reservoirs located in an upper catchment resulted in severe flood inundation situation in downslope regions of Kerala State in August 2018. In the present study, the satellite-based precipitation was analyzed on a daily to weekly basis during the flood duration in Kerala. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) based precipitation pattern indicated very high rainfall (more than 60 mm day–1) in the central parts of Kerala on 14 and 15August 2018. The climate research unit (CRU) based long-term mean cumulative precipitation (1901-2017) indicated high (300-400 mm) to very high (more than 500 mm) anomalous precipitation in parts of Kerala during August 2018 leading to severe flood inundation in major parts of the state. The Sentinel-1A Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) based inundation mapping exhibited flooding of 1100.4 km2 area (5.80% of total area) during August 2018, which severely affected Alappuzha, Thrissur, and Kottayam districts. Cropland (218.69 km2), settlement (115.23 km2) and shrubland (79.46 km2) were the most affected land-use/land-cover in the region. The study warrants the restoration of ecological stability and augmentation of resilience to flooding hazard primarily in the upper catchments (the Western Ghats).

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