Floods of the Brahmaputra River in India

ABSTRACT

Floods in the Brahmaputra basin of India are characterized by their extremely large magnitude, high frequency, and extensive devastation. During the last forty years of flood record at Pandu, the highest flood [72,748 cubic meters per second (m³s¹)] occurred in 1962. But, more recently, the 1988 flood, characterized by the maximum flood height so far observed at Pandu, appears to be the most devastating one, causing inundation of 62 per cent of Assam's Brahmaputra valley. The mean annual flood discharge of the river at Pandu is 47,608 m³s' with a recurrence interval of 2.56 years.

Floods on the Brahmaputra have been a recurring feature from early times. They may be attributed to the involvement of a host of related causes of a natural, hydrometeorological, and anthropogenic nature. But, in recent years floods of the river have become more severe, due to a variety of newly-emerged manmade causes, in addition to those generally recognized The flood control measures adopted in the basin since the early fifties are all of a short-term and ad-hoc nature and in fact, no proper floodplain management program is being implemented. Consequently, there have been regular flood onslaughts, adversely affecting the agrarian economy of the Brahmaputra valley.