The Kerala Floods

Since 2018, Kerala has faced increasingly severe and frequent floods, a stark contrast to its historical rarity, driven by factors like Indian Ocean warming and local environmental changes, underscoring a global trend of climate-driven extremes and the urgent need for improved flood management and climate adaptation.

Since 2018, Kerala, a coastal state in southern India, has experienced repeated and increasingly severe floods. The 2018 floods were catastrophic, affecting nearly all 14 districts, displacing more than a million people, and causing over 480 deaths. Just one year later, in 2019, another wave of heavy monsoon rains triggered overflowing rivers, dam releases, and widespread landslides in the Western Ghats. In the years since, flooding has continued to recur with alarming frequency, turning the once-celebrated monsoon season into a time of fear and constant emergency preparedness.

Why is it unusual or significant?

This observation is unusual because such severe, back-to-back floods were historically rare in Kerala. Since 2018, however, they have become almost annual events. Scientists attribute this trend to a combination of global and local drivers: Indian Ocean warming that fuels extreme rainfall, deforestation and quarrying in the Western Ghats that destabilize slopes, and encroachment into wetlands and urban areas that reduce natural flood buffers.

The significance lies in what this trend signals: Kerala is now far more flood-prone than in the past, and this mirrors a global pattern of climate-driven extremes seen in Pakistan, Germany, and Canada. The shift from occasional floods to recurring disasters highlights the urgent need for stronger flood management, sustainable land-use practices, and climate adaptation strategies.