submerged idee water. Later szives way under the pressure of water and flood} large area dow considered to be of India. The main causes of floods in the Beahmaputra river system can be summed up as under (0 There are 34 major tibutary rivers of Brsumaptra. These bring huge que cause floods exceeding 250 em per Some of the major canals (the do no follow the natural flow and Secondly, National Highway No. 1 nes ofthe Brahmapatra valley with imum width of about 81 km surrounded by hills [NATURAL HAZARDS AND DISASTERS fave togeter created obstacles in the tra Now of vate. ‘The state of Haryana experiences severe flood once ina decade, The saucer shaped topography of 3 of surface runoff y the Gragear river disappear in the sands of tee owing though nj and Haryana Joong Punjab and Haryana -westarn river basin covering Jammu ‘and Himachal Pradesh, the Say, lakes and sometimes threatening Srinagar and other ageas along the riverbanks. Similarly the Chenab and its tbutaries lke Taw are often in spate endangering several densely populated areas in Jammu and Akhoor. The Central India and the Deccan Region ‘The southern states of Andhra ‘Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nad Sharkand, Chbattisgarh, Maharashtra, Gujarat end parts of Madhya Pradesh are {his region. The floods donot pose a serious problem in this region because most of the rivers have well defined and stable courses. However, the deltas of he Matanad, the Godavari the Krishna and the Convery suffer from occasional floods owing tothe large sale siting and the consequent cange in the river courses, Tngscrminate felling of tees inthe catchment seas courses ofthe Navmada andthe Tap iso prone to floods. rivers of Kerala, originating in the ‘este Ghats and flowing tothe Arabian sea, couse ‘consiceable damage when in spate ‘The above description of flood prone areas sevcals that one or athe part of the country is affected by floods and flooding is almost an annual phenomenon. 1» flood prone rivers of the country. At present there ae "175 fled forecasting stations on various rivers inthe 251 FLOOD'DISASTER MANAGEMI Flood disaster management implies not planned manner bythe State Government ‘thrust of mangging floods in cifferent to modify the floods through spe measures such a5 reser ‘ovement, (OWN Prot ‘The various mess jon may be categors and ro structural. The main step fr flood Aisastr management are biel discussed below. (1) Flood Forecasting Flood forecasting iavolves giving prioc and is extremely useful provent loss of human land 26 inflow forecasting stations spread over nine major iver basins. . These cenizes issue daily-lood forecasts and warnings throughout the lod season fom May t9 ‘of carrying out a forecasting network Flood forecasting involves the following four (Transmission of ip Analysis of data and formulation (Ge) Dissemination of forecast.