How far do you agree that the behaviour of the Indian monsoon has been changing due to humanising landscape? Discuss.

Bihar's 2026 floods amid a rain deficit show how barrages, embankments and silt, not rainfall alone, now decide how monsoon rain becomes floods.

• Floods affected about 40.51 lakh people in 2,157 villages across 14 Bihar districts by 9 September 2026 despite a 27% rainfall deficit from 1 June to 8 September.
• Critics say the Farakka Barrage (operational 1975) traps silt upstream, making the Ganga bed in Bihar shallower and raising flood frequency.
• Bihar's more than 3,730 km of embankments confine rivers but raise beds through silt deposition, and breaches cause sudden floods.

Gives a current example of an erratic monsoon season; it is not attributed to land-use change, so present it only as evidence of variability.

• All-India rainfall to 19 September 2026 was 695.6 mm, 15% below normal, with nearly 43% of the country's area rain-deficient.
• Rainfall was below normal in June, August and September, while July was only about 1% above normal.
• Withdrawal began from West Rajasthan on 19 September against the normal 17 September, while IMD forecast isolated extremely heavy rain over Odisha from a late Bay of Bengal depression.

Use the 2026 data to show the monsoon's growing temporal and spatial unevenness, while noting that this season's deficit is attributed to El Niño, a natural driver.

• Monthly swings in 2026: June gave 65% of normal, July 101%, August 84% and September 92%.
• Spatial skew: East and Northeast India got 74% of LPA, the region's lowest since 1901, and the South Peninsula 76%, while Northwest (94%) and Central India (97%) were normal.
• Of 36 subdivisions, 17 (42% of area) were deficient and Odisha in excess; but the deficit came as El Niño strengthened through the season, so avoid attributing it wholly to landscape change.