A three pronged approach to solving this omnipresent problem
Photo: Abnan Abidi, Reuters
Not every natural hazard has to turn into a natural disaster. In my previous article, I showcased the cyclical problem of urban flooding in India and how it threatens lives, displaces countless families, and sows lingering economic costs. Now, planners need to tackle these problems through overarching planning and policy changes at the micro and macro levels. This is a multi-layered problem that requires an integrated approach between nature-based solutions that utilize a mix of new infrastructure, enforcement of planning and environmental standards and sustainable development of marginalized neighborhoods. A convergent solution can bring these various levels of government to work collaboratively across jurisdictional lines. While working on short-term local recommendations, top-down urban and environmental planning and policy standards will go hand-in-hand to protect local infrastructural improvements in the long run – but the government needs to work collaboratively across jurisdictional lines to make a difference
Invest and Maintain Infrastructure
Integrating green, blue and gray infrastructure (green spaces, water bodies and drains)- can fill the need for creating climate resilient 21st century solutions. Green infrastructure is also cost effective and delivers wide-ranging benefits to society like improved water quality, water security, and air quality. The principle behind using nature-based solutions and creating sponge cities is to reduce our reliance on gray infrastructure and use these strategically designed natural, semi-natural and engineered systems to enable water absorption and store this water for the dry seasons, reducing our waste of scarce resources.
The first step is protecting and restoring the already existing blue and green infrastructure in the city by local and state authorities. These local water bodies, natural drainage canals, and urban forest have been severely degraded due to rampant urbanization and need to be restored back to their original capacity, and subsequently improved to increase that capacity. These natural sponges absorb excess surface runoff, recharge groundwater, and reduce the impacts of flooding by allowing water to percolate and slow the intensity of its flow. Protecting their edges from encroachments, widening and deepening these channels, and minimizing the amount of concretized area is critical for their upkeep and effectiveness in mitigating floods. Planners should also identify urban catchment areas that water can be directed towards through pipes and canals so as to divert the flow of water safely during downpours. This water can be harvested and recycled for agricultural purposes and reused in water-stressed neighborhoods.
Measures such as detention ponds, bioswales, recharge pits, constructed wetlands and storage tanks can be used to integrate green and gray infrastructure and maximize the efficiency of limited urban spaces. These can be set up in flood prone areas in order of priority,and phased in depending on risk so as to mitigate the urban flooding impacts in a structured manner. Increasing tree cover, creating community gardens, greening rooftops, and increasing permeable surfaces help reduce the stormwater runoff and increase the natural filtration of rainwater.
Implement Sustainable Environmental Planning Regulation
Top down planning and environmental regulations work in sync with nature-based solutions and provide long term protection for these measures and enforce their application. The absence of flood zoning in Indian cities has enabled the risky development of residential buildings in the floodplain, causing many to suffer from consistent basement flooding and loss of power during the monsoon. Future urban expansion needs to be planned with flood prevention in mind, making sure sewage lines are connected to the central networks. By adapting anti-flood building codes as specified in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Flood Resistant Provisions, Indian cities can codify elevation, permeability, location, and land use requirements that ensure flood resilience in cities.
The lack of green space and increasing concretization of cities is a major contributing factor to flooding. One way to address that risk is to explore forest cover regulations, where planners mandate more tree cover for flood prone areas. This metric will take into account population density and flood risk, and be different for each city due to India’s variable rainfall patterns and topography by city. Local government agencies should enforce this regulation diligently as Creating a city-wide maintenance plan for the anti-flood infrastructure is also crucial. Local governments are inefficient with their maintenance schedules and it severely diminishes the flood resilience capacity of cities. The enforcement of consistent maintenance can go a long way towards the efficient functioning of these solutions and add to their longevity. Drainage networks of the city should be regularly cleaned, maintained and repaired well before the monsoon, not as a reactionary measure during the monsoon as is the current practice.
Address Disparate Flood Risk in Vulnerable Communities
The impoverished neighborhoods and urban villages in India are underserved by the local governments and they face the worst consequences from flooding. These informal settlements lack flood and housing security, as can be seen in Delhi’s villages along the Yamuna River. We need to reduce sprawl in these settlements, connect them to central sewage and drainage systems, and build out local maintenance routines. We should increase the density of these areas, reducing their sprawl and mitigating the impacts of urban flooding. New housing options in these communities must be elevated from the ground level and built as tall apartment buildings. By connecting these buildings to the centralized sewage and drainage systems that these areas commonly lack, the runoff from heavy downpours can be channeled effectively away from these settlements. Maintenance efforts can help build community, in collaboration with local government, by organizing voluntary cleaning bodies that raise their standards of living and increase community participation in the planning process.
By enforcing planning standards on construction companies in the form of a compulsory contribution or a tax, local governments can fund infrastructure and basic facilities to prevent urban flooding, defined as a certain percentage of their total project budgets. This percentage changes to the flood risk in the areas where the project is situated, incentivizing production in areas that are not flood prone and disincentivizing flood prone projects by decreasing and increasing the percentages. Redistributed funds from the state and national disaster relief funds can reduce associated flood relief and repair costs in the long run for these agencies by investing in flood prevention infrastructure preemptively. This will also add oversight to the process and increase the accountability in the system.
Urban flooding in India is a very critical issue, causing cities to come to a standstill and affecting millions of people adversely. The perspective of the planning profession in India must be changed from it being a reactionary process to it being a preventive process. The implementation of these measures will take years, but it will only add to India’s urban development. By thinking long term and working convergently towards the goal of reducing urban flooding disasters, a significant difference can be made for people who do not have the security they deserve.