Measures of Flood Management and Policy Implication in Kosi River Basin (North Bihar) – An Approach to Disaster Risk Reduction.

Abstract

High flood occurrences are growing more often despite a general decrease in precipitation in the Kosi River basin of North Bihar. The river's capacity for destruction resulted from the massive volumes of water it carried down from the Himalayas, which were heavy with silt, sand, and kankar. Inadequate maintenance rendered the embankments that India and Nepal had constructed to direct the river course, unable to resist the power of the floodwaters. The finding suggests that the various social, economic and cultural impacts are identical in the region due to recurrent floods in the Kosi River basin. During the recent events of flooding events in the area, Supaul, Purnea, and Madhepura districts were the most affected districts in the region, in which surging water swamped 1,000 square kilometres of farmlands, destroying large areas under crops. The present paper is a modest attempt to analyse the impact of floods on the lives of the people in the Kosi region.