Revision summary
Causes of landslides are geology, monsoon pore pressure, earthquakes, and human toe-cutting and deforestation. Effects include fatalities, cut highways, river damming, and sediment disasters. NDMA’s National Landslide Risk Management Strategy (2019) centres on hazard mapping, land-use regulation, early warning, structural and bio-engineering, awareness, and R&D. GSI, IMD, BRO, and States must share one inventory. Enforcement on construction and road design is the usual failure, not the absence of a document.
Model answer
Introduction
A landslide is the downslope movement of rock, debris, or earth under gravity. In India it is a Himalayan, Western Ghats, and north-eastern monsoon hazard, made worse by roads cut into weak slopes. The National Landslide Risk Management Strategy (NDMA, 2019) is the Union’s checklist: map, regulate, warn, and build capacity — not only send NDRF after the hill has moved.
Body
Causes
- Geology: fractured Himalayan thrust sheets, laterite and gneiss in the Ghats, and thick debris on steep valleys fail when strength drops.
- Rainfall and cloudbursts: pore-water pressure in the monsoon is the usual trigger; Kedarnath 2013 mixed flood, debris flow, and slope failure.
- Earthquakes: shaking adds load; 2015 Nepal and 2011 Sikkim showed co-seismic slides.
- Human: road and rail toe-cutting, unplanned hill construction, mining, deforestation, and drainage blocked by debris or poor culverts.
- Hydropower and tunnelling in fragile belts, if poorly designed, change slope water.
- Climate: more intense rain bursts raise the frequency of debris flows even on old scars.
Effects
- Immediate death and burial of settlements and pilgrims (Malin 2014, many Himachal and Uttarakhand seasons, Manipur and Mizoram slides).
- Isolation: highways such as NH-10, NH-6, and hill State roads close, which is an economic landslide after the physical one.
- Damming of rivers and outburst risk; damage to hydropower, transmission, and army logistics in border hills.
- Sediment in reservoirs and plains floods downstream.
- Livelihood loss for terrace farmers and a long reconstruction bill that poor hill panchayats cannot pay.
National Landslide Risk Management Strategy — important components
- Hazard zonation and mapping at usable scales, with inventory of past slides and a national database.
- Land-use and mountain-zone regulation: restrict building on red zones; enforce town-and-country rules in hill stations.
- Early warning from rainfall thresholds, slope instruments, and community watch, linked to IMD and State SDMAs.
- Loss reduction: safe alignment of roads, retaining structures, drainage, and bio-engineering rather than only blasting a new cut.
- Awareness, capacity, and preparedness: local masons, panchayats, and tourist-route protocols; pre-positioned NDRF/SDRF.
- Research, monitoring, and institutional coordination among NDMA, GSI, NRSC, BRO, NHAI, and State DGMs.
- Recovery that does not rebuild on the same scar without a geotechnical veto.
Practice gap
- Maps exist; enforcement on hotels and highway contractors is the missing component more often than a new slogan.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD G[Weak slope rain quake] --> L[Landslide] H[Road cutting building] --> L L --> E[Death isolation river damming] S[NDMA 2019 strategy] --> M[Map regulate warn] S --> R[Safe roads capacity]
Conclusion
Landslides join weak rock, water, quakes, and human cuts. Their effects are death, isolation, and river trouble. NDMA’s 2019 strategy is mapping, land-use control, warning, engineered roads, awareness, and research. It works only if the next hill road obeys the map.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
Analyse the multidimensıonal challenges posed by external state and non-state actors, to the internal security of India. Also discuss measures required to be taken to combat these threats.
Next question in the 2021 paper (Q19). View answer →
-
Are landslides only a Himalayan problem?
The Himalaya and north-east dominate deaths. The Western Ghats, Konkan, and parts of the north-east hill States are also landslide provinces.
-
Can early warning stop a slide?
It cannot freeze a slope. It can empty a school or close a road before the debris arrives.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2021 · Q1 · GS III · 10 marks
Explain the difference between computing methodology of India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) before the year 2015 and after the year 2015. -
2021 · Q5 · GS III · 10 marks
How is S-400 air defence system technically superior to any other system presently available in the world? -
2021 · Q7 · GS III · 10 marks
Describe the key points of the revised Global Air Quality Guidelines (AQGs) recently released by the World Health Organisation (WHO). How are these different from its last update in 2005? What changes in India's National Clean Air Programme are required to achieve these revised standards ? -
2021 · Q11 · GS III · 15 marks
Do you agree that the Indian economy has recently experienced V- shapes recovery? Give reasons in support of your answer. -
2021 · Q15 · GS III · 15 marks
What are the research and developmental achievements in applied biotechnology/? How will these achievements help to uplift the poorer sections of the society? -
2021 · Q16 · GS III · 15 marks
The Nobel Prize in Physics of 2014 was jointly awarded to Akasaki, Amano and Nakamura for the invention of Blue LEDs in 1990s. How has this invention impacted the everyday life of human beings ? -
2020 · Q2 · GS III · 10 marks
Define potential GDP and explain its determinants. What are the factors that have been inhibiting India from realizing its potential GDP? -
2020 · Q3 · GS III · 10 marks
What are the main constraints in transport and marketing of agricultural produce in India?
More from this paper
Q1 · UPSC Mains 2021 · GS III · 10 marks
Explain the difference between computing methodology of India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) before the year 2015 and after the year 2015.
Indian Economy
The 2015 revision moved the base from 2004-05 to 2011-12 and replaced GDP at factor cost with GVA at basic prices. Headline GDP is at market prices, in line with SNA 2008. MCA21 and wider financial and local-body coverage changed what enters the total. New IIP and price deflators mean the series is not a relabelled old index. Debate on comparability is fair; a conspiracy reading is not.
Q2 · UPSC Mains 2021 · GS III · 10 marks
Distinguish between Capital Budget and Revenue Budget. Explain the components of both these Budgets.
Government Budgeting
Revenue Budget covers tax and non-tax receipts and spending that does not create assets. Capital Budget covers borrowings, disinvestment, loan recoveries, and asset-creating outlays. Salaries, interest, and subsidies sit on the revenue side; roads, equity, and loans sit on the capital side. A revenue deficit means borrowing to consume, not only to invest. FRBM reading needs both splits, not a single deficit number.
Q3 · UPSC Mains 2021 · GS III · 10 marks
How did land reforms in some parts of the country help to improve the socio-economic conditions of marginal and small farmers ?
Crops, Irrigation and Marketing
Serious land reform meant title and recorded tenancy, not only ceiling statutes. West Bengal’s Operation Barga and Kerala’s tenancy-homestead path lifted small-farmer security and credit. Gains included investment, bargaining power, and a rural political voice. Most States failed on ceilings and left benami holdings intact. Title is a floor for welfare; markets and water still decide today’s income.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.