Problem of Floods in Urban India
Context:
- India’s cities are flooding more frequently, claiming lives and ruining livelihoods. However, a recent study headed by the World Bank and published in Nature claims that as cities grow into more flood-prone locations, their danger of flooding is increasing.
Results of the study:
- The study claims that since 1985, the number of people living in flood-prone areas has more than doubled. The results, according to experts, highlight the danger of India’s unsustainable urbanisation. In addition, the study discovered that compared to low- and high-income nations, more urban settlements are located in flood-prone areas in middle-income nations like India.
Why is India vulnerable?
- India is not one of the twenty nations whose settlements are most vulnerable to flooding, but from 1985 to 2015, it was the country that contributed the most to global settlements, behind the United States and China. It was also the third most prolific country in terms of new settlements growing into flood-prone areas, behind Vietnam and China.
- India is quite vulnerable to flood-related issues, which, if the nation doesn’t take precautions, could get worse in the upcoming years. The areas where we construct or grow our cities are at the centre of flood-related hazards.
- For instance, the floods in Bengaluru cost the city ₹225 crore. The population of the city increased from about 1.6 lakh to over a crore throughout the course of the previous century. The city grew to accommodate these people, but new neighbourhoods ignored the terrain of the area.
Who is most impacted?
- The hazards are disproportionately greater for people who reside in non-formal arrangements. In order to prevent them from being evicted right away, informal housing is situated on undeveloped, less desirable land in cities. They thus frequently rest in low-lying, prone-to-flood zones.
- The lack of regulatory mechanisms to declare this type of growth to be environmentally unsustainable is a major factor in the urbanisation of flood-prone areas.
- Environmental restrictions sometimes only apply to large infrastructure projects when it comes to new construction; they are rarely applied to medium- and small-scale locality adjustments. This runs counter to the idea that floods and flood risk are local community-level concerns and that some areas are more prone to flooding than others.
- People frequently break the laws that are in place. For instance, there has been an increase in the development of massive structures, such as government and even religious buildings, on the floodplains of rivers and in the number of ecotourism resorts situated on forest property.
What should we do?
- We are unable to stop cities from growing into places that are vulnerable to flooding as they keep growing. Expansion into flood-prone areas is typically driven by market pressures. However, the first step towards risk-aware, sustainable urban design is knowing what these places are and that we are expanding into them.
- Certain adaptations are required, and they must distinguish between low-income inhabitants and unpermitted buildings built for the privileged.
- The Mishing and Miyah communities along the Brahmaputra river are two examples of riverbank settlements using stilt buildings as examples of sustainable and local housing models.
- Every city must map the regions that are vulnerable to flooding using scientific methods. Urban governments must safeguard low-income housing and make housing in these regions more flood-resistant.
Way Forward:
- The construction of environmentally and financially sustainable housing for the impoverished, as well as the relocation of habitations from low-lying, flood-prone locations to higher terrain, will all help achieve sustainable development target number 11, or sustainable cities and communities.
