Why Nepal floods should worry India

Nepal's devastating floods have exposed a risk that does not stop at its borders.

Key points

• The embankments constructed in the 1950s and 1960s had not been properly maintained.
• India's Central Water Commission identifies the Kosi, Gandak, Bagmati and Ghaghara as some of the main transboundary rivers.
• Nepal has more than 6, 000 rivers and streams, most draining south into India and the Ganges.
• Almost 400 residents died in Bihar after the Kosi breached an embankment in Nepal.
• The 2008 Kosi disaster demonstrates why: the river was carrying far less water than the embankment was designed to handle.

India and Nepal share the rivers that rise in the Himalayas, but the relationship between a flood in Nepal and a disaster in India is more complicated than a simple story of water flowing downstream, say experts.

Some floods can race out of the mountains carrying enormous quantities of mud, rock and debris. Others may lose much of their force as they reach the plains, leaving behind a more conventional flood.

And whether that water becomes a disaster in India depends not only on how much rain has fallen in Nepal, but additionally on rainfall, river levels, embankments, drainage and development on the Indian side.

Nepal's floods are a warning for India – not simply since water flows south throughout the border, but since the two countries share a vast and increasingly volatile Himalayan river system. How plenty of Nepal rivers flow into India?

Three major systems dominate: the Kosi in the east, the Gandaki (Gandak in India) in the centre and the Karnali (Ghaghara in India) in the west, with the Mahakali (Sharda) along the western border.

Notably, a dozen smaller rivers rising in the Siwaliks and Chure – including the Bagmati, Kamala, Rapti and Babai – are less famous but can produce faster, more unpredictable floods since their catchments are small and steep.

Seven to nine major rivers flow from Nepal into the Indian plains, and they are responsible for flooding in India, according to Manish Shrestha, a hydrologist at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).

India's Central Water Commission identifies the Kosi, Gandak, Bagmati and Ghaghara as some of the main transboundary rivers. Which Indian states are most exposed?

Bihar is by far the most exposed Indian state, with roughly three-quarters of north Bihar officially classified as flood-prone.

Almost all the major rivers that flood the state originate in Nepal, with the Kosi – the "sorrow of Bihar" – the most notorious, followed by the Gandak, Bagmati and Kamala. But the risk extends beyond Bihar.

Eastern Uttar Pradesh is vulnerable to the Ghaghara, Rapti and Gandak rivers. Districts like Gorakhpur, Bahraich, Lakhimpur Kheri and Shravasti are regularly affected.

Uttarakhand state shares the Mahakali-Sharda rivers. North Bengal receives the Mechi and Mahananda.

"Bihar dominates in scale. Uttar Pradesh is second and often under-reported, " notes Pradeep Man Dangol, hydrologist at ICIMOD.

Bihar bears the greatest burden, but Uttar Pradesh is a significant and often overlooked part of the risk. When Nepal floods, what determines India's fate? Think of it as a three-part chain, say hydrologists. First, the rain: where it falls and how heavily.

Flood peaks reaching India are often generated not in the high Himalayas but lower down, in the Siwaliks, Chure and Terai, where intense monsoon rain can fall on steep, small catchments.

Nepal's rivers cross a sharp break in slope at the mountain front, drop their sediment, and spread throughout the plains as braided, shifting channels. When the water meets India, third.

How bad the flooding becomes depends on what the water encounters – the volume of rain on the Indian side, how full the Ganges is, embankments and barrages, and blocked drainage from roads, railways and settlements on the floodplain.

So the peak flow at the border is largely determined by rainfall in Nepal. The severity of flooding depends at least as much on conditions in India.

For context, the 2008 Kosi disaster demonstrates why: the river was carrying far less water than the embankment was designed to handle. The catastrophe was caused by the embankment failing, not by an exceptional flood. So how much depends on Nepal v India?

"For the peak flow arriving at the border, largely Nepal's rainfall; for the severity of flooding once it arrives, at least as much on Indian conditions, " notes Saswata Sanyal, ICIMOD's intervention manager for disaster risk reduction. How Nepal's rain becomes India's flood risk. The 2008 Kosi disaster is a powerful illustration.

Almost 400 residents died in Bihar after the Kosi breached an embankment in Nepal. But, remarkably, it was not an extraordinary high-flow event on the river.

According to Rajiv Sinha, a professor of earth sciences at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, the flow was only regarding a tenth of the river's carrying capacity. The catastrophe was caused by a breach in an embankment built decades earlier and inadequately maintained.

"The embankments constructed in the 1950s and 1960s had not been properly maintained. They had become eroded and eventually developed a subdued point. The river breached its embankment through these vulnerable points and entered parts of India that had not seen flooding for perhaps 100 years, " notes Sinha. The failure, in other words, was "structural, not hydrological", adds Sanyal. How much warning can India obtain from Nepal?

For ordinary monsoon floods, India may have "roughly 12 hours to two days of warning", according to Sanyal, depending on how rapidly the water travels downstream.

Water can take regarding a day to reach the Bihar plains from the Nepal mountain front along the Kosi and Gandak, and somewhat longer along the Ghaghara. Flash floods from the Chure rivers can arrive within hours.

In practice, a landslide-dam burst or debris flow can be even faster – in the current floods, the peak surge from Rasuwa reached Triveni, near the Indian border, in regarding seven-and-a-half hours.

India and Nepal do share real-time rainfall and river-level data from a network of stations. Nepal's Department of Hydrology and Meteorology feeds rainfall and river levels to India's Central Water Commission. It uses them for flood forecasts. But significant gaps remain, states Sanyal.

They include too few real-time monitoring stations in the fastest-flowing Chure catchments. There's additionally no single shared forecasting model between the two countries; and limited routine sharing on embankment conditions, river-channel changes and sediment. And then there's, crucially, the last mile.

Notably, a warning reaching a district office is not the same as reaching a family in danger.

For these transboundary rivers, Sinha notes, "cooperation on information sharing and early-warning systems is extremely notable. We need rapid continuous monitoring of glacial lakes, their outflows and how they are changing over time". What is the biggest misconception around Nepal and floods in India?

In practice, a common misconception is that Nepal "releases" water into India, say scientists.

Nepal has almost no sizeable reservoirs capable of doing this: its main storage dam, Kulekhani, holds less than a tenth of a cubic kilometre, "so there's nothing to release", states Sanyal.

Meanwhile, the Kosi and Gandak barrages are operated by India. When floodwater reaches the border, it is overwhelmingly since rain has fallen upstream – not as Nepal has opened a gate.

But there is an significant truth behind the claim: much of the water that floods north Bihar and eastern UP has fallen as rain in Nepal, so Nepal's rainfall largely determines the timing and size of flood peaks reaching India.

Nepal supplies around 40% of the average annual flow of the Ganges – and a much larger share in the dry season – making its hydrology critical to India.

"What is too simplistic is treating that as a story of cause and blame. Rain is not a decision, " notes Sanyal.

Whether a given flow becomes a disaster depends on conditions in India as much as in Nepal the Ganges' level, Indian rainfall, embankment integrity, drainage and sediment.

And the effects run both ways: embankments and barrages built for India's protection have raised water levels and caused backwater flooding in Nepal's Terai. It is Nepal's long-standing concern, ' notes Sanyal.

In short, why Nepal floods should worry India is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.