Coauthors: Joyita Roy Chowdhury, Swati Saini, Devi Prasad Dash & Narayan Sethi

Abstract: In this paper, we examine the impact of income and government responsiveness to flood-related measures associated with flood fatalities, the population affected, and flood-related damages in 19 Indian states between 1980 and 2011. Our results confirm an inverted U-shaped relationship between income and flood measures such as fatalities and population affected by floods. In particular, fatalities and population affected by floods increase with a turning point of income up to 882 US$ and 578 US$, respectively, and diminishes thereafter. Furthermore, a non-linear relationship exists between income and flood damages. Also, we find that government responsiveness has little effect on flood fatalities and flood damages, but this effect is non-linear (inverted U-shaped). Our result further shows that higher severity floods caused greater flood damage and fatalities while state elections have significantly lowered these impacts. In sum, our results indicating that government responsiveness is not adequate to mitigate flood impact in Indian states.

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