Disaster Management · TEE · papers
Q7B · Elaborate the classification types for the case study of “Kerala Floods” and justify …
2023-05-04 · Semester VI final
Actual older TEE paper · 100 marks · Q1 compulsory; any four of Q2–Q7
Q7B. Elaborate the classification types for the case study of “Kerala Floods” and justify the same in detail. [10 marks]
Answer
Chain: natural hydrometeorological trigger → physical flooding and associated landslides → water, land, buildings and society affected → predominantly regional/state-scale impacts with national support.
- Event and setting: Heavy monsoon rainfall in August 2018 caused widespread flooding and landslides in Kerala.
- Causes and vulnerability: Very high rainfall, saturated catchments, affected river systems and exposed development combined; reservoir management formed part of the broader management challenge.
- Impacts: Damage to housing, roads, crops and services, large-scale evacuation and major recovery needs.
- Response and recovery: Government services, armed forces, volunteers and local fishers supported rescue and relief; rebuilding required coordinated needs assessment.
- Lessons: Use integrated basin planning, forecast-informed reservoir coordination, wetland and drainage protection, accessible warnings and resilient reconstruction. Avoid assigning the entire disaster to one cause.
Definition. Classification groups disasters by a stated property. The same event can have different labels under different bases; those labels are not competing answers.
| Basis used in the lecture | Categories | Example: Bhopal gas tragedy |
|---|---|---|
| Origin / occurrence | Natural; human-induced; biological events considered separately where appropriate | Human-induced industrial event |
| Hazardous characteristic | Chemical, biological, radiological or physical | Chemical: toxic methyl isocyanate release |
| Affected environmental / social component | Air, water, soil and society; more than one may be affected | Primarily toxic air exposure with serious social and health consequences |
| Geographic / administrative reach | Local, state/regional (“domicile” in the lecture), national, international/global | The release was local to Bhopal; response and consequences involved wider levels. |
Legal / administrative boundaries: each course category with an example
| Category in the lecture | Meaning | Example and why it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Local | The affected area is within a locality or community. | Illustrative example: a serious factory fire disrupts one industrial neighbourhood. Its immediate geographic impact is local, even if outside firefighters assist. |
| Domicile / regional | The affected area extends across a region or state. | The 2018 Kerala floods illustrate a disaster affecting many districts within a state. National assistance does not change the location of the main affected area. |
| National | Effects and coordinated action extend across a country. | COVID-19 can be studied at the national scale through its effects across India and the countrywide response. |
| Global / international | Effects extend across national borders. | The COVID-19 pandemic affected countries worldwide, so it also illustrates the global scale. The same event can be discussed at more than one geographic scale. |
These labels describe the geographic reach used in the faculty classification. They do not establish that a government formally declared an event a “national disaster”. State the affected area and explain the chosen label; keep the level of assistance separate.
Five hazard groups
| Hazard group | Example | Possible disaster |
|---|---|---|
| Geological / geophysical | Fault rupture | Damaging earthquake |
| Hydrometeorological | Extreme rainfall / cyclone | Flood or coastal storm disaster |
| Biological | Pathogen transmission | Epidemic or pandemic |
| Technological | Hazardous industrial release | Chemical gas disaster |
| Environmental | Degraded ecosystems or severe pollution | Loss of ecosystem services and increased disaster vulnerability |
A natural trigger does not mean all losses are unavoidable. Poor siting or construction can intensify losses. Forest fires may start from lightning or from human actions, so classify their origin according to the known ignition cause. “Domicile” here is course terminology for a regional/state reach, not a standard scientific measure of severity.