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Highlight the extent to which India is vulnerable to landslides. How the government is arming up itself to mitigate the negatives of landslides. Also suggest your measures to fix the menace.
Highlight the extent to which India is vulnerable to landslides. How the government is arming up itself to mitigate the negatives of landslides. Also suggest your measures to fix the menace.
Landslides are downward and outward movement of slope materials such as rock debris and earth, under the influence of gravity.
India’s Vulnerability:
- India accounts for 20% of the global landslides. (Global Fatal Landslide Database)
- About 12.6 % of the total land mass of India falls under the landslide-prone hazardous zone. (Geological Survey of India).
- The world's top two landslide hotspots exist in India: the southern edge of the Himalayan arc, and the coast along south-west India where the Western Ghats are situated. (Global Fatal Landslide Database)
- About 70 hydropower projects in the Himalayas at risk of quake triggered landslides.
Causative factors:
a. Natural causes:
- Vibrations from earthquakes
- build-up of water pressure between soil layers due to prolonged rainfall or seepage.
b. Human-made causes:
- removal of vegetation from the slopes,
- interference with natural drainage,
- leaking water or sewer pipes,
- modification of slopes by construction of roads, railways, buildings etc
Mitigation Measures:
- Constructing check dams, asphalt mulch, synthetic grids to prevent erosion.
- Creating catch-water drains and road-side drains when it comes to surface drainage.
- Creating horizontal drains when it comes to subsurface drainage.
- Creating restraining systems like retaining walls, gabion walls etc.
- Re-grading and benching of slopes.
- Planting suitable trees in barren and sloppy hill areas.
- Avoiding human facilities in landslide prone areas.
- Developing and continuously updating the database on landslides.
- Display boards for the public in areas prone for landslides to avoid accidents.
Government Machinery:
- Geological Survey of India as the nodal agency for landslide management is engaged in all types of investigations.
- National Landslide Susceptibility Mapping (NLSM) is the programme initiated by GSI to map the susceptible areas to landslides.
- NDMA runs The National Landslide Risk Mitigation Project for reducing the vulnerabilities.
- India actively participates in the International Programme on Landslides which is an international initiative.
Conclusion:
- Deaths due to landslides are preventable if the general public and the government work in tandem
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