Panaji: Goa must adopt rainwater harvesting at the household and community level to deal with increasingly erratic monsoon patterns, former National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) Chief Scientist Dr M R Ramesh Kumar said recently.
Speaking on the Southwest Monsoon, El Nino, La Nina and climate change, Dr Kumar told The Navhind Times that the state was seeing an altered rainfall distribution pattern rather than a decline in precipitation, adding, climate change is altering the distribution of rainfall rather than causing a significant decline in the state’s annual rainfall.
“Goa’s annual rainfall has not decreased. Long-term records dating back to the Portuguese period indicate that rainfall has actually increased slightly. However, rainfall is now concentrated in a few extreme events followed by prolonged dry spells, creating serious challenges for water management,” he said.
Dr Kumar said weather anomalies should not always be attributed to El Nino, as the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) also played an important role and could offset El Nino’s adverse effects on the Indian monsoon. He said the Indian Ocean had become the world’s warmest ocean basin, contributing to increased atmospheric moisture and more erratic weather patterns.
He said rapid land-use changes, including the conversion of paddy fields and open spaces into housing colonies, had reduced groundwater recharge and urged households, housing societies and institutions should adopt rainwater harvesting and groundwater recharge
measures.
“Goa receives abundant rainfall, but we fail to conserve it. Traditional wells and groundwater recharge systems must be protected,” he said, citing Tamil Nadu’s water conservation practices despite its lower annual rainfall.
On cloud seeding, Dr Kumar said it is an expensive and uncertain method of addressing rainfall shortfalls. “Clouds move with the wind. If one state spends money on cloud seeding, the rain may eventually fall in a neighbouring state,” he said.
He said climate change is linked to unchecked urbanisation, environmental degradation and unsustainable exploitation of natural resources. Land use changes, Dr Kumar said, are increasing surface temperatures and intensifying the urban heat effect, particularly in areas such as Panaji.
“We are in a soup,” he said, urging citizens to focus on water conservation, protecting natural ecosystems and sustainable development to build resilience against future climate extremes.
Dr Kumar also said Goa is vulnerable to rising sea levels. He said the current rate of sea-level rise was around 2 to 3 mm annually and that continued melting of Antarctic ice posed a long-term threat. “If the entire Antarctic ice sheet were to melt, global sea levels could rise by nearly 65 metres,” he said, adding that the effects of rising seas were already visible in low-lying island nations and vulnerable coastlines, including Goa.
