Human Neglect, Lopsided Policies Behind a Natural Disaster

When the Jhelum, Chenab and Tawi rivers spilled over their banks recently, from Rajbagh, Lasjan, Rambagh to Anantnag, Pulwama, from Chenab Valley to the plains of Jammu, people were busy pulling their belongings and themselves to the top storeyes of their buildings or the rooftops, or running for their lives. Farmers watched their fields turn into muddy lakes and homes into dirty pools. Families in low-lying villages packed what they could into sacks before turning toward higher ground.

The rain was heavy, even unprecedented, but the damage was already waiting to happen long before the skies opened.

Hills stripped of their forests can no longer hold back the water. Riverbeds dug hollow by miners no longer slow the current. Wetlands that once soaked up the overflow now lie buried under encroachment and concrete. Every one of these choices made in boardrooms, sanctioned on paper, or simply ignored has left Jammu and Kashmir more defenseless and prone to disasters.

The Vulnerable Geography of J&K

The same rivers that keep Jammu and Kashmir’s fields green and its towns alive are also the ones that most often swallow them partially or in entirety. In the Valley, everything seems to lead back to the Jhelum, that slow, looping river fed by the Lidder, Sindh, Doodhganga, and Vishow. In the South, the Tawi, Chenab, and Ravi run through Jammu like restless veins. Usually calm, a few days of relentless rain or a sudden burst of glacial melt can turn them wild, angry, unstoppable.

The Jhelum flows through a basin so narrow that even a single night of heavy rain can push its levels dangerously close to the brim. At Sangam, it is built to safely carry about 35,000 cusecs of water. But in the past disasters, it has crossed 1.2 lakh cusecs which is three times more than its capacity limit.

Jammu faces a different problem. The Tawi and Chenab come running down slopes that have been stripped bare of trees, carrying mud, boulders and everything that comes its way. The much-hyped artificial lake on the Tawi, meant to bring tourists and Jammu’s weekend destiny, has ended up changing the river’s behaviour, pushing water back into parts of the city instead of letting it flow out through its natural course.

People in Kashmir still talk about the September 2014 floods as if they happened yesterday. Entire neighbourhoods disappeared under water. More than 300 lives were lost, lakhs were displaced, and the economic loss was counted in trillions of Rupees. That flood was also a harsh reminder of how badly the old safeguards had been neglected.

The century-old Flood Spill Channel, which once diverted 20,000 cusecs of water safely toward Wular Lake, had been left clogged and half-dead. The wetlands Hokersar, Anchar, Shallabugh, Bemina, which for generations had quietly soaked up the Jhelum’s overflow, had been eaten away by housing schemes and farmland.

After the disastrous 2014 floods, scientists, experts, and activists have warned that unless these natural buffers are revived, disasters will keep repeating. Ten years on, those warnings sound less like a caution and more like prophecies.

The geography of Jammu and Kashmir makes it vulnerable; it was neglect and reckless development that turned that vulnerability into a crisis.

The floods this year were not as disastrous as 2014, but that is hardly comforting. What these past weeks have shown is that even a forecast of heavy rain is enough to break whatever infrastructure exists. Due to climate change and global warming, floods are not once-in-a-decade events anymore. They are almost a regular visitor, and each time, failed planning, poor governance and obsolete policies make the suffering worse.

Recent Floods in Jammu and Kashmir

The recent rains of July and August 2025 once again turned life upside down for people in Kashmir, another test for Kashmir and for the people living along the river banks and the infrastructure constructed to prevent floods.

In south Kashmir’s Anantnag, Pulwama, and Kulgam, due to heavy downpours, the Jhelum quickly swelled and crossed the danger mark, spilling over and cutting its banks and taking over fields and creeping into homes. In some villages, families barely had enough time to grab their belongings before moving to safer places.

At Kandizal in Budgam, the embankment breach caused flooding that affected up to 70,000 residents across surrounding areas, as per official data. In Srinagar, the gauge at Ram Munshi Bagh touched 30 feet, seven feet above the official danger mark, while at Sangam it crossed 25 feet. According to Sartaj Ahmad Shah, Director of Agriculture Kashmir, paddy crops across more than 3,000 hectares have been affected in recent flooding.

Jammu was a similar story. The Tawi rose suddenly and tore through the banks, carrying away everything that came along its path.

The controversial Tawi artificial lake project, once promoted as both a tourist attraction, weekend destination and flood regulator, came under sharp criticism. People there are asking why the Tawi artificial lake project was allowed in the first place.

Activist Rakesh Sharma argued: “The Tawi lake project was supposed to regulate water flow and beautify the city. Instead, it has created bottlenecks, reduced the river’s natural capacity, and contributed to waterlogging in adjoining areas.”

Forests: The Natural Barriers

In Jammu and Kashmir, forests have always been more than trees. For people here, they are a resource, a livelihood, a shield, and a flood barrier. Their roots hold the loose soil together and their branches slow the rain. The ground beneath them soaks up water before it rushes downhill. Once these forests are gone, no dam or concrete wall or any technological advancement can provide a protective cover. Still the cutting of forests has not stopped, in fact, it continues at a much higher pace than before.

Forest Survey of India, in its 2021 report, found that around nine square kilometers of forest cover were lost between 2019 and 2021. On paper and oral discussions, it looks small, but anyone who travels through Budgam, Shopian, Kupwara or Doda will tell you the reality is far worse.

Hills and mountains that were once green and dense woods now stand exposed and barren. Timber smuggling, road projects, and creeping encroachment have left entire slopes bare and desolate. In the Chenab Valley, road building has cut deep into mountainsides, and even a normal spell of rain now triggers landslides.

Prof. Nisar Ali, an environmental scientist at Kashmir University, says it in plain words: “Every tree cut in our mountains is one less guard against floods and landslides. Deforestation is not only about timber theft, but also about eroding the very shield that protects us all.”

The consequences are already visible. Hills and mountains no longer hold water, they throw it down to us. Streams turn into flash floods, and rivers choked with silt, spill over quickly. The natural property that disappears on trucks comes back in another form months later, as flooded fields and damaged homes downstream. 

Illegal Riverbed Mining: A Crisis getting unnoticed

One of the least talked about but most dangerous reasons why floods keep hitting Jammu and Kashmir is the illegal riverbed mining. For years now, the Jhelum, the Tawi, the Chenab and their tributaries have turned into open quarries. Big machines, excavators, and trucks go straight into the riverbeds and pull out everything they can.

A 2023 Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) assessment flagged J&K as a “zone of concern,” noting that extraction exceeded sustainable thresholds in J&K. It said the riverbeds were being dug too deep, making embankments weak enough to hold large volumes of water. When the next flood comes or water gets slightly high, it would break out and run into residential areas and agricultural fields, making floods more frequent and destructive.

Environmental activist Dr. Raja Muzaffar Bhat, who has been raising this alarm for years, put it bluntly at a seminar in Srinagar: “when you pull tonnes of sand and boulders out with machines, you strip the river of its holding potential. Its banks collapse faster, and villages nearby are left exposed.”

Geoinformatics expert Dr. Irfan Rashid of the University of Kashmir explains the hydrological impact: “Unregulated mining lowers the riverbed, which disconnects it from adjoining wetlands and floodplains. This intensifies water velocity and reduces the river’s ability to recharge aquifers.” 

In Jammu, the Tawi has been mined so heavily that its natural course has been warped. Even though the National Green Tribunal ordered in 2019 that riverbed mining should be regulated scientifically, the rules are barely followed or even executed properly. Permissions are given without proper monitoring and agencies keep no regular check on this.

This summer, when floods once again struck parts of Jammu and south and central Kashmir, activists and experts repeated what they have been saying all along: stop treating rivers like quarries. “If we keep doing this, floods will keep destroying lives,” Dr. Muzaffar warned.

Failed Urban Planning and Rapid Expansion

Years of construction on encroached river embankment lands that once kept the city safe from rising waters have heightened the threat of floods.

For centuries and generations, wetlands like Hokersar, Anchar, Shallabugh and the low-lying patches around Bemina area of Srinagar acted as sponges holding back rainwater and surplus river water, slowing its flow, and refilling the groundwater.

These wetlands have been eaten down piece by piece by converting them into housing colonies, farmland, or new private or public commercial projects.

Locals here and even environmental experts and scientists say the change has been quick. Hokersar, called the “queen of wetlands,” has shrunk from nearly 19 square kilometers in the late 1960s to about 13-14 square kilometers today. A government-backed study has warned that almost half of Srinagar’s lakes and wetlands have vanished in the last few decades due to illegal encroachment.

This has resulted in the city being more exposed to floods than ever before. Between 2006 and 2018 alone, over 2,300 kanals of wetland disappeared in Kashmir. These wetlands which once soaked up entire floodwater, now just push it away into nearby localities, residential areas and homes.

Jammu faces a similar story of neglect. Along the Tawi, the river has been narrowed by embankments and riverfront projects. The government backed “beautification” drives have mostly meant concrete banks, even over parts of the riverbed.

Many environmental activists like Anmol Ohri from Climate Front India keep warning that meddling with the natural course of rivers would only make floods worse, turning the river into a narrow channel that can’t handle heavy rain.

The Human Cost We Pay

The damage and devastation from floods can’t just be measured by the number of buildings, shops, or by how many bridges go down and how many fields are submerged. The real cost is written on the faces of the people who suffer and live through it.

Farmers stand by and watch their fields disappear under the water, knowing a whole season’s work is gone. With the paddy and apple and other kharif harvest season underway, the flood-induced devastation threatens farmers, marginal incomes and the region’s overall agricultural output.

Shopkeepers, small businessmen, traders, farmers, most of them without any crop or goods insurance find their crops and goods ruined and businesses shut for weeks. Families start gathering belongings to put their houses back together, often without any government help or social aid coming in time.

Sartaj Ahmad Shah, who heads the Agriculture Department in Kashmir, says that paddy on more than 3,000 hectares has been hit this year, and about a third of the crop is gone. That is a serious blow in a place where rice is on every family’s plate.

The dark memories of 2014 still haunt us all, about 300 lives were lost and the state put the damage at about ₹1 trillion. A report from the State Disaster Management Authority says over 2.5 million people were affected during the 2014 floods.

In 2025, the water hadn’t risen that high, but it still exposed how vulnerable people living near the riverbanks and low-lying areas are. Women and children have it the hardest, with health workers reporting more stomach infections, water borne diseases and problems for pregnant women after every flood.

Governments make big announcements about relief packages, but the help comes late and is not enough to return to the previous normalcy. Most of the money that is given to the affected barely covers a fraction of what people actually lose.

Families are left at stake of borrowing from relatives or taking loans just to get a roof over their heads. As activist Raja Muzaffar Bhat puts it, “Floods here are not just about water—they wipe out what most people have, make the poor poorer, and leave them fighting to get back on their feet.”

The Institutional and Policy Deficit

Flood management in Jammu and Kashmir has never been just about stopping rivers from overflowing. It’s also about dealing with and reviving the weak systems and a proper governance setup that is too slow to react and respond.

The Irrigation and Flood Control (I&FC) Department, which is supposed to look after embankments, dredging of rivers and flood channels, and maintain flood spill channels, is stretched thin both in terms of manpower and funding. Government records show that in recent years, less than half of the funds needed for flood control works and infrastructure were actually released. This leaves embankments weak and vulnerable and spill channels clogged, which is why they breach away whenever there’s heavy rain.

After the disastrous 2014 floods, the World Bank approved a $250 million Jhelum-Tawi Flood Recovery Project in 2015. It was meant to restore key infrastructure, improve flood defenses, and set up better disaster response systems.

But here we are, almost ten years later, and progress is still crawling. The World Bank’s own report in 2023 said that just about 55 percent of the money had been spent. Major immediate works needed, like dredging the rivers to bring their actual or earlier carrying capacity back, are still incomplete. Embankments that were supposed to be strengthened in parts where they were needed most are half-done. As a result, Srinagar and the nearby areas remain just as exposed to flooding as before.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) also pulled up the administration in its 2022 report, pointing to poor planning and a lack of coordination between the concerned departments and agencies. Unless the I&FC Department is timely and properly funded and empowered, and unless different agencies actually work together, there’s every chance that what happened in 2014 will happen again, turning a rare disaster into a routine nightmare.

Global Climate Change and J&K

Climate change has become a reality to grapple with. Everyone talks about climate change these days, environment experts, scientists, activists, and for good reason. The western Himalayas, where Jammu and Kashmir lie, have warmed at twice the rate of the Indian subcontinent, which has intensified both mean and extreme precipitation, resulting in heavier and more frequent rainfall events that often trigger severe flooding.

Higher temperatures have also accelerated glacial shrinkage, increasing the number of unstable glacial lakes. 

As per climate experts, these unstable lakes make the region particularly vulnerable. Studies using satellite images show that lakes like Gangabal are getting bigger every year, and experts warn that if one of those natural dams bursts, whole villages could be washed away.

Similar studies in the western Himalaya, where Jammu and Kashmir lies, report rapidly expanding lakes (one lake grew 78.7% in 22 years), signalling rising GLOF (glacial lake outburst flood). Researchers are now mapping which areas would flood and how quickly, aiming to guide evacuations and safer building locations.  

Environment experts and activists warn that these risks cannot be ignored and call for constant monitoring of glaciers and lakes, early-warning systems, and restoration of watersheds. National and State disaster authorities emphasize preparedness and climate-sensitive land rules. Meanwhile, local observers say that the past warnings and incidents were ignored, and construction and riverfront projects continued to remain unchecked.

Learning Before the Next Disaster

Floods in Jammu and Kashmir are not mere accidents of nature. They are the consequences of our greed, selfishness, disrespecting nature for our misplaced choices. The mountains, rivers, and valleys have always been fragile, yet decades of unchecked mining, deforestation, encroachment on floodplains, and haphazard urban growth have left the land and its people on margins of natural disasters.

Every submerged village, every collapsed bridge, every ruined field is a story of past warnings we ignored. Unless someone listens and acts to end the cycle of decades of neglect and short-sighted planning. Acting now is both a fresh opportunity and our duty to protect what still remains.