Floods and waterlogging are the two most important river hazards in the alluvial and coastal areas of India affecting thousands of people every year. There has been a significant increase in the extent of waterlogged areas during the last few decades due to large-scale human interventions. Enormous amount of money has been spent on mitigation of these hazards particularly on floods but a sustainable solution is still far from sight. Further, the available climate change models suggest that both magnitude and distribution of rainfall will change in most parts of India. This implies that the extreme events would be much more frequent in future. There is therefore an urgent need to spread awareness about the causative factors and the best management practices across the globe both to the policy managers as well as the local communities.

The Knowledge Network Centre on floods and Waterlogging at IIT Kanpur supported by UNDP  and AusAid is aimed at developing the much desired knowledge base on these two river hazards sharing this with stakeholders and local community for developing resilience towards these disasters.  The focus of the knowledge centre is on disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation with special reference to Bihar and Odisha.