Abstract
In recent decades, the Himalayas have seen increasing extreme precipitation events. Climate change has impacted the occurrence and distribution of extreme precipitation events across the Himalayas. Patterns of both western disturbances and the Indian summer monsoon are undergoing significant changes in nature due to climate change. However, the magnitude and intensity of flood in a stream are not always linearly dependent on the amount of precipitation. Other factors, such as topography, land use, soil characteristics, and antecedent hydrological conditions, play a pivotal role in modulating the response of a watershed to an extreme precipitation event. On July 07–11, 2023, several districts of Himachal Pradesh faced devastating floods resulting in loss of life, infrastructure, and environmental damage with significant economic consequences. Developing a resilient solution for managing such events and reducing damage requires an in-depth understanding of multiple causative factors of such extreme events. In this paper, we analyzed the meteorological and hydrological factors that caused the flooding situation in Himachal Pradesh during July 2023. Hydrometeorological data from several observation stations were analyzed along with reanalysis data from ERA5, SMAP-L4, and FLDAS-NOAH to understand the causative factors that lead to peak floods. The compounding of extremely heavy rainfall with near-saturation antecedent moisture content and snowmelt was found to be the leading factor in inflating and sustaining the flood peak.
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Acknowledgements
Authors are thankful to the State Data Center, Himachal Pradesh for providing the ground observed data. The authors are also thankful to the Indian Institute of Technology Mandi and the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering for providing the necessary resources to conduct this study.
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This work was supported by funding from Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, Asia–Pacific Network for Global Change Research (Grant numbers IITM/SG/VKG/102 and CRRP2022-01MY-Sharma).
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Vivek Gupta conceptualized the project and led the initial draft writing; Bilal Syed and Aliva Nanda conducted hydrological analysis; Ashish Pathania conducted atmospheric data analysis; Saran Raaj analyzed observed data; Shubham Awasthi performed remote sensing-based flood analysis; and Dericks P Shukla reviewed and improved the manuscript.
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Gupta, V., Syed, B., Pathania, A. et al. Hydrometeorological analysis of July-2023 floods in Himachal Pradesh, India. Nat Hazards (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-024-06520-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-024-06520-5