How much time exactly does Maharashtra have?

Maharashtras lsquojust bornrsquo district is in danger of going down under And itrsquos up against the modern centuryrsquos most formidable challenger climate changeTribaldominated Nandurbar in the north western part of the state a district that was born in 1998 after it was carved out of Dhule has been named the most vulnerable in a recent studyA boy in Karanji Khurd village Navapur in the Nandurbar district of Maharashtra The tribal dominated arearsquos SeVi index makes it the most vulnerable district among 36 in the state to climate change due to its high dependency on rainfed agriculture kharif crops and economic backwardness PicGetty ImagesWhile last week top scientists across the world who are part of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change IPCC warned that global warming is dangerously close to spiralling out of control a day prior on August 8 Chaitanya Adhav of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research ICAR and the National Dairy Research Institute NDRI cautioned about the effect of changing weather patterns in Maharashtra In the study titled Socioeconomic vulnerability to climate changemdashIndex development and mapping for districts in Maharashtra he discussed how extreme conditions can severely affect the livelihoods and agrarian economy of the state with 11 of the 36 districts identified as ldquohighly vulnerablerdquo to extreme weather events drought and water security ldquoI started working on the study in August 2020 and concluded it in March 2021 I hail from Ahmednagar and have witnessed frequent drought and lowering groundwater levels I was keen to assess the climatic deterioration in Maharashtra The aim of this study is to understand if there are going to be floodlike situations in the future and if so how do we prepare for themrdquo adds Adhav a research scholar in agricultural economics ICARNDRI Karnal HaryanaExperts say we donrsquot need to look very far back As recently as last month a bout of heavy rainfall and flooding managed to destroy over 25 lakh hectares of crop area in Maharashtra ldquoI developed a climate change induced socioeconomic vulnerability index SeVI which includes various socioeconomic as well as crop and dairy indicators for all districts SeVI is used to study the vulnerability of communities in the context of social and environmental changes The results are bafflingrdquo explains Adhav who wrote the study under the guidance of Dr Sendhil R scientist at ICARNDRILast year the onset of monsoon in Nandurbar was very late around June 25 This year too the rainfall has been scanty says Sachin Phad scientistagrometeorology Krishi Vigyan Kendra Phad says low pressure areas are needed in order to receive adequate rainfall ldquoBut in Nandurbar and surrounding areas there is no low pressure being createdrdquo Pic courtesyMansingh RajputFor the study a total of 44 indicators were selected including irrigation strength percentage of people living in poverty percentage of agricultural workers among total workers and literacy rate After assigning an index value to each district a composite socioeconomic index value was calculated to assess the districtrsquos overall risk and preparedness to deal with climaterelated distress Later all districts were categorised as high moderate and less vulnerable to climate changeldquoThe SeVI was the highest in Nandurbar 091 and lowest in Pune 041 Results indicated that out of 36 districts 11 were highly vulnerable 3994 per cent cropped area 14 were moderately vulnerable 3685 per cent cropped area and nine were less vulnerable to climate change 2321 per cent cropped areardquo A majority of the highly vulnerable districts are from the Central Maharashtra Plateau Zone Moderately vulnerable districts are from Central and Eastern Vidarbha Zone Less vulnerable districts are from North Konkan Coastal Scarcity Zone and Western Maharashtra Zone reveals the study which is currently under peerreviewKishore Dhamale member of Satyashodhak Shetkari Sabha a farmersrsquo organisation agrees that Nandurbar is in imminent danger ldquoEarlier rainfall in Mumbai would be followed by rain in Dhule and Nandurbar in the next three to four days But in the last three years things have changed While the rainfall received in Konkan has been adequate this year it has barely rained in Nandurbar Additionally winters are very cold and summers are severe It is amounting to unbearable weatherrdquo Dhamale warnsMap Uday MohiteOther districts with high exposure to climate change include Beed Gadchiroli Nashik Palghar Satara Ahmednagar Kolhapur Sindhudurg Ratnagiri and Sangli Of these eight districts fall in the Central Maharashtra Plateau Zone and only one district Nandurbar is under the Western Maharashtra Plain Zone ldquoThis may be due to the high concentric temperature and rainfall changesrdquo Adhav addsBhagwan Kesbhat founder and CEO of Waatavaran an organisation that works to tackle air pollution worked in Nandurbar between 2003 and 2004 ldquoThe districtrsquos socioeconomic vulnerability index is the highest because its population is predominantly tribal In the case of Sangli and other vulnerable districts mentioned in the ICAR report the agrarian community there has the ability to adopt new agricultural practices and sustain themselves In Nandurbar this isnrsquot the case Its residentsrsquo dependency on kharif crops is high and they follow traditional farming practices Multicropping is not followed there And a majority of the population migrates to Surat or Nashik for temporary employmentrdquo Kesbhat explainsKishore DhamaleA Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture study CRIDA 2019 reported that a large number of districts in the state suffer from major agricultural vulnerability The present report also found a high prevalence of rainfed agriculture as one of the major drivers of vulnerability In addition while on the one hand this state is droughtprone it was one of nine Indian states to have been officially declared droughtprone in 2015 on the other only 18 per cent of its net cultivation area is under irrigationA Government of Indiarsquos Department of Science and Technology report titled Climate Vulnerability Assessment for Adaptation Planning in India Using a Common Framework 20192020 confirms the ICAR study saying ldquoThe highest vulnerability index is found in Nandurbar and the lowest in Gadchiroli The major drivers contributing to vulnerability are low road density lack of forest area per 100 rural population lack of crop insurance schemes and a high percentage of marginal and small operational landholdersrdquoA woman being rescued by members of the National Disaster Force after flashfloods damaged large parts of Maharashtra on July 23 Kirankumar Johare physicist and meteorologist cloudburst expert and former scientist of IITM says ldquoMore than 101 cloudbursts and flashflood events have occurred in Maharashtra on July 22 and July 23 this year which is alarming PicNational Disaster Response Force Handout Getty ImagesMaharashtra has been divided into nine agroclimatic zones based on rainfall soil type and the vegetation These are Central Maharashtra Plateau Zone Central Vidarbha Eastern Vidarbha Zone North Konkan Coastal Zone South Konkan Coastal Zone Scarcity Zone Sub Montane Zone Western Ghat Zone and Western Maharashtra Plain Zone ldquoNandurbar which has six talukas in the district falls under three agroclimatic zones Navapur taluka receives 1200 mm rainfall and the Satpuda hilly range also records rainfall in abundance However other talukas including Nandurbar Shahada and Taloda receive lesser rainfall Last year the onset of monsoon in Nandurbar was very late around June 25 This year the rainfall has been scantyrdquo informs Sachin Phad scientistagrometeorology Krishi Vigyan KendraWhy is this happening Phad says low pressure areas are needed in order to receive adequate rainfall ldquoBut in Nandurbar and surrounding areas there is no low pressure being created In the last two months there was low pressure in the Arabian Sea which led to rainfall in Kolhapur and Sangli In Marathwada last month the region received rain due to low pressure in the Bay of Bengal We are in touch with the Indian Meteorological Department IMD and according to their figures the overall temperature is also increasing August 19 onwards however there is some rain activity expected in the regionrdquo Phad addsChaitanya Adhav Sachin Phad Bhagwan Kesbhat and Kirankumar JohareHis team has created a WhatsApp group with farmers in Nandurbar to update them on IMDrsquos weather predictions ldquoWe inform our farmers about blockwise forecast so their crops are not destroyed Our aim is to ensure reduced loss to crops We send them forecast information every Tuesday and FridayrdquoOn July 14 Maharashtrarsquos agriculture minister Dada Bhuse had said that 74 per cent of kharif sowing for the season has been completed across the state with soybean seeds sown across 38 lakh hectares and cotton across 39 lakh hectares However he also added that Nashik Dhule and Nandurbar had shown below average sowing figuresThe alarming frequency of natural calamities around the world caused in large part by global warming indicates the inevitability of climate changeinduced disasters Visions of wildfires in Greece and flooding in Italy have pushed people to reassess their oncesafe homes and how they could one day be affected by the consequences of climate change Kirankumar Johare physicist and meteorologist cloudburst expert and former scientist of IITM says ldquoMore than 101 cloudbursts and flashflood events have occurred in Maharashtra on July 22 and July 23 this year which is an alarming issue My scientific observation and analysis results showed that droughtprone Marathwada has now become a cloudbursts flashfloods region Cloudbursts that previously occurred in August and September are now occurring as early as May in Uttarakhand Himachal Pradesh Kashmir and other northern states of IndiardquoBut rejecting the ICAR study Johare calls the global warming theory a hoax ldquoGlobal warming global cooling and climate changerelated terminologies are nonsensical in the scientific community as everything in the solar system is governed by the sun Solar radiation and cosmic rays are impacting the earthrsquos atmosphere India needs Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning AssistedCustomised Real Time Weather Information and Alert System AIMLACRTWIARS I am working towards it One hopes that by using it the government will be able to provide information and real time alerts via mobile phone technology to help people fight the weather warrdquo12No of cities including Mumbai which could be under water by end of century Top Indian scientist on UN panel says this is lsquowithin realm of possibilityrsquo P0825L hectareCrop area in several districts of Maharashtra destroyed by heavy rainfall and flooding in just July 2021