Also: floods, droughts, flood-prone areas, drought-prone areas
Definition
The two opposite extremes of India's monsoon-dependent water cycle: floods, when rivers or rainfall overwhelm land and drainage, and droughts, when rainfall or water availability falls well below normal for long enough to harm crops, people and ecosystems; many districts face both within a few years.
India receives most of its rain in about four monsoon months, and even within those months it falls in a few intense spells separated by breaks. This concentration is the root of both problems. A strong spell over a river basin produces more water than channels can carry, while a long break or a weak season leaves soils and reservoirs dry. Year-to-year variation is linked to ocean-atmosphere patterns such as El Niño, which often weakens the monsoon, and the Indian Ocean Dipole, which can strengthen or weaken it.
This entry looks at floods and droughts through the lens of physical geography, explaining where and why they occur, rather than repeating the disaster management procedures covered in the main lesson. The aim is to connect each hazard to the landscape: river regimes, relief, soils, rainfall reliability and human changes to land and water.
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