India's rivers may flood together, even if far apart, finds IISc study

INDIA is the second-most flood-prone country in the world, according to the National Remote Sensing Centre, ISRO.

- RISHITA KHANNA @ Bengaluru

INDIA is the second-most flood-prone country in the world, according to the National Remote Sensing Centre, ISRO. To better understand the scale of this risk, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) are using statistical modelling to map entire river basins, not just individual rivers, in Peninsular India, to find out whether floods in different rivers may be connected, even if the rivers themselves are far apart.

Floods currently account for nearly half of all natural disaster deaths in India. Normally, the Central Water Commission (CWC) assesses flood risk at the level of individual river basins. But IISc researchers say this approach is outdated.