Environmental and Livelihood Impact Assessment of 2013 Flash Flood in Alakananda and Mandakini River Valley, Uttarakhand
India has been historically susceptible to natural disasters due to its unique geo-climatic conditions in which the Himalayan ecosystem is very fragile and a little disturbance can cause harmful effects. The present work is an attempt to assess the enviro
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Abstract India has been historically susceptible to natural disasters due to its unique geo-climatic conditions in which the Himalayan ecosystem is very fragile and a little disturbance can cause harmful effects. The present work is an attempt to assess the environmental and livelihood impact of the 2013 flood in Mandakini valley, Uttarakhand (India), using geospatial techniques and an environmental evaluation system. The land use land cover (LULC) maps for the years 2011, 2014, and 2017 (Alaknanda basin) and 1997, 2011, and 2017 (Mandakini basin) were prepared using Landsat satellite imageries, and the statistical changes were estimated in the respective LULC classes derived. The results showed significant changes in terms of LULC dynamics in the whole region. Further, to analyze changes in vegetation cover in the region, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index was calculated, depicting the overall decrease in vegetation cover. By using Battelle Columbus method of environmental evaluation system, the impact of the flood on ecological and cultural aesthetics and human interests, with and without the disaster is also derived. A questionnaire-based survey was conducted in Gaurikund and Kedarnath to assess the repercussions of the flood on the livelihoods of inhabitants. It showed that the stoppage of tourism-based livelihood activities, which were critical to the local people, deems it necessary to map the footprint of the flood on livelihood generation activities. The overall result of this study is that there are significant impacts of flood on both the environment and people residing in the region, and anthropogenic activities were major contributors to the catastrophe. The major outcomes of this analysis will help in creating the baseline data for major S. Tripathi · N. C. Gupta Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, New Delhi, India G. Areendran · K. Raj · M. Sahana (*) IGCMC, WWF–India, New Delhi, India e-mail: gareendran@wwfindia.net; kraj@wwfindia.net; msahana@wwfindia.net © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. Kumar et al. (eds.), Remote Sensing and GIScience, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55092-9_2
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disastrous studies in India and also support sustainable management strategies in response to these extreme events. Keywords Mandakini valley · Geospatial techniques · LULC · Livelihood framework · NDVI · Battelle Columbus method
1 Introduction India is highly prone to floods, droughts, cyclones, and earthquakes. The frequency of avalanches, forest fire, and landslides is high in the Himalayan region of northern India (Sahana and Sajjad 2017; Sahana et al. 2018; Khatun et al. 2018; Areendran et al. 2020). In India, 25 out of 36 states/union territories are more vulnerable to natural calamities. Around 50 million people in the country are affected by one or the other disaster every year on an average, besides the loss of property worth several million (Sharma 2005). The Himalayan region is seismically and tecton
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