100 Million people’s life will be affected due to India’s worst cyclone Fani.

100 Million people’s life will be affected due to India’s worst cyclone Fani. Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm Fani is currently a powerful tropical cyclone that is about to make landfall in East India and is threatening Bangladesh as an extremely severe cyclonic storm.

Satellite-Image-of-Cyclone-Fani

Image Credit- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

What is Cyclone Fani?

Cyclone Fani is a tropical cyclone which started from Eastern India, and will threated to Bangladesh as well. This is the first severe cyclonic storm of the 2019 .

How did the cyclone Fani Originate?

Fani originated from a tropical depression near west of Sumatra in Indian Ocean on 26^th April. 

The-track-of-cyclone-Fani

Who watches over tropical disturbance in India?

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) monitored a tropical disturbance that formed in the North Indian Ocean, and designated it with the identifier 01B.

Fani slowly drifted westward, finding itself in an area conductive for strengthening. The system intensified and two days after being named, it became Cyclone Fani, the second named storm of the season.

Fani moved northward, struggling to intensify as moderate vertical wind shear hampered its progress. After moving away from the wind shear, Fani began to rapidly intensify, and became an extremely severe cyclonic storm on 30 April 2019, the first severe cyclonic storm of the season.

However, this is evident that 2019 will bring more disasters due to rising heat of the earth.

The government’s agencies and various scientific agencies have warned about more cyclones. Some of the warning of reports are given below.

Flood and natural calamities  have been devastating in recent times due to climate change. In 2018 the frequency of such events has increased and for sure 2019 would bring more events to handle. People have started noticing 'slightly' the climate however, efforts are not enough. 

A picture that shows the rise in Sea Level due to climate change

Natural calamity can be any event or force of nature that has catastrophic consequences, such as avalanche, earthquake, flood, forest fire, hurricane, lightning, tornado, tsunami and volcanic eruption. 

Which of the natural calamity hurts the people most?

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), barring fire, floods are the most common natural disaster affecting Americans. Floods are a factor in 90 percent of natural disasters. 

Floods can occur due to both natural and man-made reasons. Storm events can create flood waters that exceed the capacity of the environment or man-made structures. 

Levees and dams provide a false sense of security as became evident during the Great Flood of 1993 in the Upper Mississippi River valley and even in India the constant flood occurs. 

A painful lesson was learned. Wetlands destruction removed a natural means to absorb floodwaters.

Difference between weather and Climate Change

Weather is experienced for short period of time for an hour or a day while climate is the average weather and its variability over a long period of time.  

Why do Natural Calamities happen?

Due to change in the climate frequency of catastrophic events like- Cyclone, floods, thunder storm will be on rise. The reasons vary for every event, but the most dangerous reason is the warming of the earth.  Rise in temperature melts glacier and wind turns into storms due to low pressure area created by warm air.

 

This balancing act of the nature often creates storms and heavy rains.  It is observed from the recent devastations post flood that economic cost is also huge. 

Can natural disaster be prevented?

Not all-natural disasters can be prevented. Each natural disaster has its own factors and complications. Understanding the basic principles of ecology can provide keys to lessening their effects. Nature evolved with natural disasters and disturbance. The best prevention is looking at the strategies found in nature.

 The prevention is better than cure

The technological advancement is at peak, and due to scientific discovery there are models and steps to build a climate resilient infrastructure.

The economy must be sustainable and adaptable to the challenges. The Infrastructure that allows economy to grow and sustain is the need of the hour. Infrastructure consists of high value assets for long terms like bridges, rocks and power stations etc. 

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What is climate resilient Infrastructure?

Climate Resilient Infrastructure is designed to mitigate the vulnerable impacts of the climate change. It can safeguard and strengthen developing countries’ economic growth.

Role of the government

The government has its role to play and adapt important elements for national policies. It will help setting up standards and a well prepared National Infrastructure Plan. The government can push experts of various fields and bring different people like owners, investors, professions together. The government can help in maximizing the opportunities to grow greener, more modern and sustainable world.

The possible measures can be-

1.       Ensuring Infrastructure is resilient to potential increase in extreme weather events such as storms, floods, and heat waves as well as extreme cold weather.

2.      Ensuring investment is made

3.      Building the flexibility so that according to the demand infrastructure can be modified.

4.      Ensuring that infrastructure organizations and professionals have the right skills and capacity to implement adaptation measures.

For the purpose the government has to identify core sectors first like – communication, health, emergency services, energy, water, food, and transport etc. The infrastructure and adaptation projects can be first focused on these sectors.

What is the world doing about it?

There are countries who are working efficiently like Australia identified adaptable and secure water supplies to cope with climate change as one of its seven key objectives. The country has also established a climate change adaptation project which included developing a standard climate change adaptation system for organizations. 

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Denmark is working on road regulations and railway standard. These are being revised with consideration of expected climate change. The Danish Environmental Protection Agency published guidelines in 2007 in order for Municipalities to take climate change into account.

Japan issued a series of practical guidance on strategic climate change adaptation planning.

New Zealand Infrastructure Plan identified in 2010 the impacts of Climate change as one of the long term key trends to be addressed.

USA, also established infrastructure working group to analyses the impact from climate change on its infrastructure and strategies to adapt it.

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What are challenges and Barriers?

The path of building a climate resilient infrastructure is not easy, there are certain challenges identified by various agencies. For example-

1.       Information Gaps: Information must be provided as a public good to help public and private sector organizations to understand that what climate change could mean.

2.      Managing Uncertainties: There are evidences available but time, nature and scale can not be predicted related to climate change.

3.      Balancing Priorities: Climate resilience should be balanced against the priorities. The area has been identified, and according to the risk the priorities should be decided.

4.      Shorter term Regulator Focus: The strong emphasize remains on short term value, which can be adding to the climate unpredictability.  

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