Answer: Cloudbursts are short-duration, intense rainfall events over a small area resulting in flood-like situations in the region. Cloudburst occurs when moisture-rich air travels up a mountainous region, forming a vertical column of clouds known as Cumulonimbus clouds.

Reasons behind the increasing intensity of cloudbursts:

• Impact of Climate Change: With rise in temperature, the atmosphere becomes capable of holding more and more water resulting in a short but very intense rainfall in a region. 
• More cloudbursts are happening in Himalayan region as the decadal temperature rise in the Himalayan region is higher than the global rate of rising temperatures.
• Impact of southwest monsoon: In India, cloudbursts often occur during the monsoon season, when the south-westerly monsoon winds bring in copious amounts of moisture inland. The moist air that converges over land gets lifted as they encounter the hills. The moist air reaches an altitude and gets saturated, and the water starts condensing out of the air forming clouds. 
• For example: Strong monsoon wind surges along the coast can also result in cloudbursts, as in the case of Mumbai (2005) and Chennai (2015). 
• Increasing concentration of greenhouse gases: Due to rampant use of fossil fuels,etc. 
• Deforestation in mountainous areas: Which often leads to increasing carbon dioxide concentration which causes global warming.
• Increasing construction activity in mountainous areas.: This contributes in increasing the damage caused by the cloudburst. 

Disaster Vulnerability due to Cloudbursts

Cloudbursts occur mostly over the rugged terrains of the Himalayas, Western Ghats, and northeastern hill states of India. It affects areas in following ways: 

• Flash floods: This occurs because of sudden and heavy downpour in mountainous regions.
• For example, flash flood due to cloudburst in Uttarakhand’s Kedarnath in 2013. 
• Landslides: Due to oversaturation of soils, sudden movement of mass of rock downslope. 
• Debris and mudflows due to sudden and short span downpour. The nature of lands such as precipitous slope and fragile and undulating terrain further accentuate the velocity of debris flows. 
• Cloudburst causes roadblocks, land degradation, forest and cropland loss, and losses of life. 
• For example: cloudburst in the famous Hindu pilgrimage ‘Kedarnath’, which killed more than 10,000 people and devastated the entire Mandakini and Alaknanda river valleys. 
• The economic impact of cloudburst: Debris flow due to the flash flood in cloudburst are tremendous in the forms of a household affected, loss of human and animal life, building loss, forest loss, existing crop loss, loss of fruits, loss of arable land, and loss of bridge. 

Measures that can be taken to mitigate the impact of cloudbursts: 

• Real-time early warning of cloudbursts need to be developed. 
• Doppler radars that can predict sudden changes in the weather about three to six hours in advance can assist in early warning for cloudbursts.  
• The capacity and capability of the human resources of panchayati raj bodies, disaster management authorities, NGOs and communities involved in flash flood and cloudburst management need to be continuously improved and strengthened. 
• Ensuring preparatory measures before the rainy season assists in minimising loss of human and animal lives. 
• Initiating mitigation measures such as shifting people from the valleys to hills, raising infrastructure, houses and businesses above the floodplains quite away from rivers and streams. 
• Better management of rainwater and floodwater to prevent and minimise disaster-induced losses.  
• Watershed management that stabilizes the hill landscape and ensures better tackling of resultant landslides, flash floods, mudflows and land-caving needs to be adopted. 
• Ensuring smooth flow and drainage of rainwater in the plains would prevent human, animal and infrastructural losses after cloudbursts and heavy rain. 
• The rehabilitation operation should be executed with the purpose of bringing back sustainable livelihoods. 

Mainstreaming of disaster risk reduction of cloudbursts involves incorporating risk reduction and mitigation measures into the developmental policy, planning and practices. Bracketing cloudbursts with floods, landslides and cyclones, their management projects should be planned and implemented in a time-bound manner.