Disasters in West Bengal: An Interdisciplinary Study
Subtitle: An Interdisciplinary Study
Publisher: acb publications
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Kolkata, India
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 168
Description: Natural disasters are destructive and tragic events that harm society, economy and environment. Cyclone Aila hit West Bengal, India, in the year 2009, flooding villages and forcing thousands of people from their homes. The cyclone, accompanied by heavy rain, hit the coastal areas of West Bengal, leaving at least 18 people dead and around 0.1 million affected. A large part of the state of West Bengal is exposed to frequent natural catastrophes like floods, cyclones, droughts and landslides that often turn into disasters causing significant disruption of socioeconomic life of communities and loss of human lives and properties. 
Global consequences of natural disasters for the survival and livelihoods of individuals and communities are increasing over time. It has been observed that the number of natural disasters occurring now is more than four times than that occurred two decades ago. But at the same time there has been a paradigm shift in the attitude of the global community towards natural hazards, from a relief-centric approach to a holistic and integrated approach that emphasizes prevention, mitigation, and preparedness of extreme events.
It is felt, therefore, in West Bengal too there should be an increasing importance of disaster risk reduction and increased disaster-response capacities towards building disaster resilient societies. Consequently, this demands an interdisciplinary study on natural disasters in this state. This book is such an attempt to accomplish the above requirements. Experts from different fields have contributed articles, starting from meteorology to management and geomorphology to economics, on the basis of which this book has been edited.
“MICRODIS – Integrated Health, Social and Economic Impacts of Extreme Events: Evidence, Methods and Tools” under the EU Sixth Framework Programme has provided financial assistance to publish this book. So, we would like to thank Professor Debarati Guha-Sapir, Microdis Coordinator and Professor, Catholic University of Louvain, Brussels, Belgium for her inspiration and continuous cooperation in preparing this book. The editors also acknowledge all sorts of help provided by Prof. P. N. Ghosh, Vice-Chancellor, Mr. G. K. Pattanayak, Finance Officer of Jadavpur University. 
We hope the topics in this edited book would be of immense interest to the researchers, planners and policy makers engaged in disaster management in West Bengal as well as India.
Table of contents: title: Preface; title: List of Contributors; title: Chapter 1: Introduction; title: 1.1. Introduction; title: 1.2. Classification of Natural Disasters; title: 1.3. A Brief History of Natural Disaster in West Bengal; title: 1.4. Severity of Damages due to Natural Disasters in West Bengal; title: 1.5. Policy towards Reduction of Vulnerability; title: Chapter 2: Geomorphology and Meteorology of Natural Disasters; title: 2.1. Introduction; title: 2.1.1. Administrative and Physiographic description of the area; title: 2.1.2. Climatological setup of the area; title: 2.2. River networks of West Bengal; title: 2.2.1. Brahmaputra system of river; title: 2.2.2. Ganga system of river; title: 2.2.3. Tidal rivers of deltaic West Bengal; title: 2.2.4. Subarnarekha system of river; title: 2.2.5. River basins and sub-basins; title: 2.3. Meteorological disasters of West Bengal; title: 2.3.1. Flood; title: 2.3.2. Tropical Cyclone; title: 2.3.3. Local convective storm; title: 2.4. Prediction and Early Warning System for risk reduction; title: 2.4.1. Early warning through numerical models; title: 2.5. A case study of flood at lower reach of the Silabati River; title: Chapter 3: Identification of Vulnerable Regions; title: 3.1. Introduction; title: 3.2. Vulnerability index; title: 3.3. Methodology; title: 3.4. Application of the vulnerability index to India; title: 3.5. Selection of flood-prone states in India; title: 3.6. Selection of cyclone-prone states in India; title: 3.7. Selection of flood-prone and cyclone-prone districts in West Bengal; title: 3.8. A more general methodology; title: Chapter 4: Disaster Impacts; title: 4.1. Introduction; title: 4.2. Disaster impacts and their valuation; title: 4.3. Impact assessment: Case studies in West Bengal; title: 4.3.1. Damages by Flood in Ghatal Block of West Medinipur; title: 4.3.2. Impact of Natural Disaster on Marine Fisheries; title: 4.4. Forecasting of damage by disaster; title: 4.5. The effect of disaster on environmental sustainability; title: Chapter 5: Ex-Ante and Ex-Post Disaster Issues; title: 5.1. Introduction; title: 5.2. Financial Innovations; title: 5.2.1. Problems with Usual Insurance Schemes; title: 5.2.2. Innovative Financial Instruments; title: 5.2.3. Developed Country Experience; title: 5.2.4. Developing Country Experience; title: 5.2.5. Indian Experience; title: 5.2.6. West Bengal Scenario; title: 5.3. Ex-Ante Self Protection and Ex-Post Assistance; title: 5.4. Other Aspects of Ex-post Assistance; title: 5.5. Options for governance and institutional arrangements; title: 5.5.1. Definitions of institutions and organizations; title: 5.5.2. Components of institutional framework; title: 5.5.3. Significance of reconstruction on institutional framework; title: 5.5.4. Analysis of key elements of institutional framework; title: Chapter 6: An Overview and Remaining Questions; title: Index