‘Climate change, loss of forest cover fuel deadly landslides’
New Delhi: The devastating landslides in Kerala’s Wayanad district, which claimed at least 123 lives and injured 128 others, have brought into sharp focus the region’s increasing vulnerability to such disasters. A combination of climate change, fragile terrain, and significant loss of forest cover has created a perfect storm of conditions conducive to these catastrophic events.
According to the landslide atlas released by ISRO’s National Remote Sensing Centre in 2023, Kerala is home to 10 of India’s 30 most landslide-prone districts, with Wayanad ranking 13th. TIt said 0.09 million square kilometres in the Western Ghats and the Konkan hills (Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Goa, and Maharashtra) were prone to landslides.
A 2021 Springer study revealed that 59 per cent of Kerala’s landslides occur in plantation areas, highlighting the impact of land-use changes. This finding is further supported by a 2022 study on Wayanad’s forest cover, which showed a staggering 62 per cent loss of forests between 1950 and 2018, coupled with 1,800 per cent increase in plantation cover. These dramatic shifts in land use have significantly altered the region’s natural stability.
Climate change is exacerbating these risks. S Abhilash, director at CUSAT’s Advanced Centre for Atmospheric Radar Research, points to the warming of the Arabian Sea as a key factor. This warming is leading to the formation of deep cloud systems, resulting in extremely heavy rainfall over shorter periods in Kerala. Such intense, localised rainfall events are more likely to trigger landslides in the region’s already fragile terrain.
Research published in the npj Climate and Atmospheric Science journal in 2022 found that rainfall patterns over India’s west coast are becoming more convective, characterised by intense, short-duration showers. Another study published in Elsevier in 2021 suggested a southward shift of heavy rainfall hotspots in the Konkan region, potentially increasing landslide risks in the Western Ghats.
The tragedy in Wayanad also resurrects the unheeded warnings of the “Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel,” led by ecologist Madhav Gadgil. In 2011, the panel recommended declaring the entire hill range an ecologically sensitive area and proposed bans on various industrial activities in high-risk zones. However, these recommendations remain unimplemented due to opposition from state governments, industries, and local communities.
As climate change continues to alter weather patterns and human activities further modify the landscape, the risk of landslides in regions like Wayanad is likely to increase.
