The ideal conditions for the destructive landslides in Kerala's Wayanad district, which resulted in 123 fatalities, were created by climate change, delicate terrain, and deforestation, as per various studies conducted over time.
A sequence of landslides in the mountainous regions of Wayanad was triggered by extremely heavy rainfall early Tuesday, leading to injuries of 128 individuals and leaving many feared trapped beneath the rubble.
Last year, the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) National Remote Sensing Centre published a landslide atlas, which indicated that 10 out of the 30 most landslide-prone districts in India were in Kerala, with Wayanad ranked 13th.
The atlas further highlighted that 0.09 million square kilometres within the Western Ghats and the Konkan hills (located in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Goa, and Maharashtra) were susceptible to landslides.
"The vulnerability of inhabitants and households is more significant in the Western Ghats due to the very high population and household density, especially in Kerala," the report read.
A study published by Springer in 2021 said all landslide hotspots in Kerala were in the Western Ghats region and concentrated in Idukki, Ernakulam, Kottayam, Wayanad, Kozhikode and Malappuram districts.
Approximately 59 per cent of all landslides in Kerala were reported to have occurred in plantation areas.
A 2022 study on the reduction of forest cover in Wayanad revealed that 62 per cent of forests in the district vanished between 1950 and 2018, while plantation cover increased by approximately 1,800 per cent.
A study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that until the 1950s, around 85 per cent of Wayanad's total area was covered in forests.
Scientists indicate that climate change is amplifying the likelihood of landslides in the Western Ghats, which is one of the eight "hottest hotspots" of biological diversity globally.
S Abhilash, the director of the Advanced Centre for Atmospheric Radar Research at Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT), informed PTI that the warming of the Arabian Sea is enabling the development of deep cloud systems, resulting in exceptionally heavy rainfall in Kerala over a short period, thereby increasing the risk of landslides.
"Our research found that the southeast Arabian Sea is becoming warmer, causing the atmosphere above this region, including Kerala, to become thermodynamically unstable," Abhilash said.
"This atmospheric instability, allowing the formation of deep clouds, is linked to climate change. Earlier, this kind of rainfall was more common in the northern Konkan belt, north of Mangalore," he added.
Research conducted by Abhilash and other researchers and published in the NPJ Climate and Atmospheric Science journal in 2022 revealed that there was an increase in convective rainfall over the western coast of India.
Convective rainfall is often characterized by intense, brief showers or thunderstorms confined to a small area.
Another research paper authored by Abhilash and scientists from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology and the India Meteorological Department, and published in Elsevier in 2021, indicated that a region known for heavy rainfall in the Konkan area (located between 14 degrees north and 16 degrees north) appears to have shifted southwards, possibly leading to severe consequences.
"An increase in rainfall intensity may suggest a rising probability of landslides in the high to mid-land slopes of the Western Ghats in eastern Kerala during the monsoon seasons," the study said.
The landslides also brought to the fore the unheeded warnings of the "Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel" set up by the government under ecologist Madhav Gadgil.
The report was submitted to the Central government in 2011, proposing that the complete hill range should be designated as an ecologically sensitive area and divided into ecologically sensitive zones based on their ecological importance.
It suggested prohibiting mining, quarrying, new thermal power plants, hydropower projects, and large-scale wind energy projects in ecologically sensitive zone 1.
Despite 14 years passing, the recommendations have not been put into effect due to opposition from state governments, industries, and local communities.
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