Time to rework flood management plans

While policymakers and world leaders are still debating measures to combat climate change, extreme weather events triggered by it are wreaking havoc across the world. For India, urban flooding has become a part of our everyday life. Year after year, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru and almost all of Kerala go underwater in the monsoon season.

An analysis of rainfall patterns since 1901 has shown two important trends—one, the quantity of monsoonal rainfall has steadily declined over the years and two, rainfall-related events have become more extreme. This change, leading us into less but more aggressive rainfall days, has had an effect over urban infrastructure, public health and local ecosystems.

This year, for instance, a brief spate of flooding in Bengaluru washed away 500 cars and flooded 300 homes. The impact of the Hyderabad floods was much worse. The losses suffered by the Roads and Buildings  Department alone were estimated at a whopping Rs 184 crore. 

While most other countries have adopted intensive mitigation efforts, Indian cities have hardly done anything to incorporate climate-proofing technologies into their urban planning strategies. China, for instance, has started a plan called “Sponge Cities” where it develops large tracts of green areas around densely constructed or populated regions that work like a sponge, absorbing flood water during a disaster.

Unfortunately, considering India’s population density and the stress it lays on land resources, this is not a strategy implementable here. Experts feel that water-sensitive urban design techniques used in countries like the UK and Australia would be ideal for Indian cities.

However, this would involve drastic measures—protecting water bodies, avoiding construction over wetlands and improving the stormwater drainage system. Such a technique would help cities like Chennai, which do not have a perennial local water resource, save the flood water draining out of the stormwater system for use during dry spells. It is important for policymakers to understand this emergency and integrate such a plan into urban development.