Insights & analysis
Data-grounded analysis of flood exposure across India — what the numbers say, why the risk concentrates where it does, and what can be done about it. State by state.
The one place in the atlas where the districts that rank lowest are the ones that were destroyed
How much of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands is exposed to a 100-year rainfall flood, why the Nicobars rank lowest here despite being devastated in 2004, and why this atlas is the wrong map for the islands' most dangerous hazard.
Read article →Thirty-two square kilometres of coral, none of it more than a few metres above the sea — and the hazard that matters is not in this map
How much of Lakshadweep is exposed to a 100-year rainfall flood, why the answer is shallow and nearly uniform on coral atolls with no rivers, and why sea-level rise and storm surge — which this atlas does not model — are the real question.
Read article →India's flood risk begins here — where the Brahmaputra enters the country and one lowland district holds the only depth you can trust
How much of Arunachal Pradesh is exposed to a 100-year flood, why its modeled depths are the atlas's least reliable after Sikkim, what the 2000 Siang outburst flood revealed, and why upstream events in Tibet decide the outcome downstream.
Read article →The most flood-exposed state in the atlas — where nearly half of every building stands in the Brahmaputra's path
How much of Assam is exposed to a 100-year flood, why the Brahmaputra floods almost every year, how the atlas's 43.7% independently matches six decades of official assessment, and why embankments and erosion have made the problem worse.
Read article →Two states in one — a shallow, crowded valley and a Barak lowland where seven buildings in ten are exposed
How much of Manipur is exposed to a 100-year flood, why the Imphal valley floods shallow while Jiribam floods extreme, the role of Loktak Lake and the Ithai barrage, and what a landlocked bowl means for flood management.
Read article →The wettest place on Earth barely floods — the water it makes drowns somebody else
How much of Meghalaya is exposed to a 100-year flood, why Cherrapunji's record rainfall produces catastrophic flooding in Bangladesh and the Garo lowlands rather than on the Khasi plateau, and what that means for how the state should manage water.
Read article →Where the flood map is the wrong map — the capital is the least exposed district and it is where people died
How much of Mizoram is exposed to a 100-year flood, why its real water hazard is landslides rather than inundation, what the May 2024 Aizawl disaster showed, and how to read a flood atlas in a state where flooding is not the main danger.
Read article →The least exposed state in the Northeast — where one plains district carries six of every ten exposed buildings
How much of Nagaland is exposed to a 100-year flood, why Dimapur dominates the state's risk, how a largely man-made drainage failure drives its worst flooding, and why what happens in the Naga hills decides how badly Assam floods.
Read article →No safe district — a small state where every district sits between 16% and 29% exposed
How much of Tripura is exposed to a 100-year flood, why its risk is unusually evenly spread across all eight districts, what the record August 2024 Gumti floods revealed, and why a shallow flood in a dense state is still a serious one.
Read article →India's best-drained city — until a cloudburst finds the choes and the low sectors
Chandigarh has one of the lowest flood-exposure shares in the atlas — a dividend of planned drainage. But its seasonal choes, low sectors, and Sukhna Lake spills still flood. How much is at risk, why, and what a single planned city can do about it.
Read article →Three scattered enclaves, one wet coastal belt, and a river that answers to a dam upstream
This small union territory is three physically separate enclaves on and near the Gujarat–Maharashtra coast. How much is exposed to a 1% annual-chance flood, why the Daman Ganga and the monsoon drive it, and what a realistic strategy looks like.
Read article →A river reclaiming its floodplain, and a city that drowns in its own drains
How much of Delhi sits in a 100-year flood, why nearly half the city is exposed along the Yamuna belt and its choked drains, and a realistic, phased strategy to build resilience in the National Capital Territory.
Read article →India's flood heartland — where the Himalaya empties onto a flat, sinking plain, and a river called the Sorrow keeps changing its mind
How much of Bihar is exposed to a 100-year flood, why three-quarters of the north lives under recurring threat from rivers born in Nepal, and a realistic, phased strategy to build resilience.
Read article →Wide and shallow across the plains — until a dam release turns a river into a wall over a city
How much of Gujarat is exposed to a 100-year flood, why its risk concentrates in the central-Gujarat cities and turns lethal when dam releases meet urban rivers, and a realistic, phased strategy to build resilience.
Read article →A flat bowl ringed by mountains — why the Kashmir Valley floods deep, and the peaks flood fast
How much of Jammu & Kashmir is exposed to a 100-year flood, why the enclosed Jhelum basin pools water while the surrounding mountains bring cloudbursts and glacial-lake risk, and a realistic, phased strategy to build resilience.
Read article →The lowest flood-exposure share in the east — a hard-rock plateau where the water pools only where the hills meet the plains
How much of Jharkhand is exposed to a 100-year flood, why its risk is the lowest of the eastern states and concentrated where the Chota Nagpur plateau meets the Ganga, the Subarnarekha and the Koel, why dam releases drive its worst events, and a realistic, phased strategy to build resilience.
Read article →A cold desert where flooding is rare, sudden and deadly — the cloudburst, not the river
How much of Ladakh is exposed to a 100-year flood, why a high-altitude cold desert in the Indus rain-shadow floods rarely but catastrophically through cloudbursts and glacial melt, why the modeled depths are DEM noise rather than water, and a realistic strategy built on warning and siting.
Read article →A flat plain between the Yamuna and the Ghaggar — where more than a third of the buildings sit in the floodplain
How much of Haryana is exposed to a 100-year flood, why a flat Indo-Gangetic plain drained by the Yamuna and the seasonal Ghaggar floods the way it does, and a realistic, phased strategy to build resilience.
Read article →A mountain state that floods from the top down — cloudbursts, flash floods and dam surges, not broad floodplains
How much of Himachal Pradesh is exposed to a 100-year flood, why its risk is flash floods, cloudbursts, landslides and dam-linked surges in steep Himalayan valleys rather than broad floodplains, and a realistic, phased strategy to build resilience.
Read article →The forested heart of India, where the rivers are born — a plateau state that floods on the Malwa cities, in the Chambal badlands, and down a dam-managed Narmada valley
How much of Madhya Pradesh is exposed to a 100-year flood, why its risk splits between the Malwa plateau cities, the Gwalior-Chambal region and the dam-linked Narmada valley, and a realistic, phased strategy to build resilience.
Read article →The land of five rivers, floored flat — a shallow flood over a third of the state, made worse the day the dams let go
How much of Punjab is exposed to a 100-year flood, why nearly a third of its buildings sit in a shallow, canal-flat floodplain fed by monsoon river spills and Bhakra–Pong dam releases, and a realistic, phased strategy to build resilience.
Read article →The desert state that floods — canal plains, a lost river, and cloudbursts over the Thar
How much of Rajasthan — India's largest and driest state — is exposed to a 100-year flood, why the Thar desert floods at all, and a realistic, phased strategy to build resilience across three very different flood regimes.
Read article →The steepest state in the atlas — where the flood comes down the Teesta gorge, not up a floodplain
How much of Sikkim is exposed to a 100-year flood, why its real danger is glacial-lake outburst floods and flash floods rather than floodplains, why the atlas's deepest modeled depths are a terrain artifact, and what actually saves lives here.
Read article →The Ganga heartland carries the largest flood exposure of any Indian state — and much of its water is made in the Himalaya, across a border
How much of Uttar Pradesh is exposed to a 100-year flood, why the eastern Terai and Purvanchal flood year after year from Himalayan rivers, and a realistic, phased strategy to build resilience.
Read article →Two states in one — a broad, shallow Terai plain in the south and a violent, uncertain Himalaya in the north
How much of Uttarakhand is exposed to a 100-year flood, why the state floods in two completely different ways — shallow across the Terai plains where most buildings are, and catastrophically in the steep Himalaya — and a realistic, phased strategy to build resilience.
Read article →The largest delta on Earth, the Sorrow of Bengal, and a Himalayan foothill — one state, three floods
How much of West Bengal is exposed to a 100-year flood, why the Ganga–Brahmaputra delta gives it the highest flood-exposure share of any large Indian state, and a realistic, phased path to resilience.
Read article →The source of the Mahanadi — a plateau state that floods upstream of Odisha, on a broad plain and in a forested tribal south
How much of Chhattisgarh is exposed to a 100-year flood, why its risk splits between the upper-Mahanadi plain and the flash-flood Bastar south, how it sits upstream of Odisha's delta, and a realistic, phased strategy to build resilience.
Read article →The world's disaster-management success story — that still floods almost every year
How much of Odisha is exposed to a 100-year flood, why its water spreads broad and shallow across the Mahanadi delta, and why cyclone-evacuation success does not erase flood exposure.
Read article →Not one flood but four — a coast, a river basin, a drowned metropolis, and the quiet interior that carries the most
How much of Maharashtra is exposed to a 100-year flood, why the state has four completely different flood regimes rather than one, and a realistic, phased strategy to build resilience.
Read article →Broad, shallow, deltaic — and one choked rivulet that drowned a city
How much of Andhra Pradesh is exposed to a 100-year flood, why its water spreads wide and shallow across the Krishna–Godavari delta, and a realistic, phased strategy to build resilience.
Read article →A smaller, sharper footprint — the Godavari belt and a lake-choked capital
How much of Telangana is exposed to a 100-year flood, why its risk is concentrated in the northern Godavari belt and urban Hyderabad rather than spread statewide, and a realistic, phased strategy to build resilience.
Read article →The most exposed of all — small, flat, and in the water's path
Puducherry has the highest flood-exposure share of any region in the atlas, and one of its districts is the single most exposed anywhere. How much is at risk, why, and what a small union territory can do about it.
Read article →A small state where the water runs deep
Goa is small, but its floods are the deepest in the atlas. How much is exposed, why short coastal rivers and vanishing khazan wetlands make it worse, and what a realistic strategy looks like.
Read article →Three floods in one state — coast, river, and city
Karnataka doesn't have one flood problem, it has three: the coastal Kannada belt, the North Karnataka rivers, and Bengaluru's lost lakes. How much is exposed, why, and a strategy for each.
Read article →Deeper water, steeper ground — and what it takes to live with both
How much of Kerala is exposed to a 100-year flood, why its flooding runs deeper and more dangerous than the plains, and a realistic, phased strategy to build resilience.
Read article →Where it stands, and a strategic path forward
How much of Tamil Nadu is exposed to a 100-year flood, why it concentrates where it does, and a realistic, phased strategy to reduce the risk over the next two decades.
Read article →