{"id":138695,"date":"2021-10-01T19:49:30","date_gmt":"2021-10-01T14:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=138695"},"modified":"2021-10-05T18:48:45","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T13:18:45","slug":"water-water-everywhere-and-we-must-stop-to-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/water-water-everywhere-and-we-must-stop-to-think\/","title":{"rendered":"Water water everywhere and we must stop to think"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Synopsis<\/strong>: Floods have begun to affect an increasing area of India with rising intensity and frequency. Urban infrastructure is under severe pressure, and it\u2019s unclear if we are prepared for worse.<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Incidents of floods in urban areas have been increasing year after year in India.<\/p>\n

Rainy season flooding in metro cities like Mumbai<\/strong> and now even Chennai has begun to host recurring floods.<\/p>\n

This year, 11 September saw Delhi\u2019s international airport<\/strong> waterlogged after its heaviest rainfall in 46 years, barely three weeks after a similar episode.<\/p>\n

Kolkata<\/strong> logged a 13-year peak in precipitation, with canals for roads and even areas that had always stayed relatively dry getting soaked.<\/p>\n

Bengaluru<\/strong> reported arterial roads and junctions flooded on 25 July.<\/p>\n

The floods in Hyderabad<\/strong> after a torrential downpour on 2 September had a lethal quality: gushing waters swept away vehicles and hand-carts.<\/p>\n

Several other state capitals have been submerged in recent years, Lucknow, Thiruvananthapuram, Patna, Bhopal<\/strong> and Ahmedabad<\/strong> among them.<\/p>\n

What are the causes of floods?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Repeated floods in the cities are being caused primarily by cloudbursts<\/strong> in urban zones and overflowing rivers<\/strong> in the hinterland.<\/p>\n

Among the contributors to recurrent floods in many cities, we have sewage systems choked with the debris<\/strong> of construction material.<\/p>\n

Climate change<\/strong> is also responsible for such recurring floods in our cities.<\/p>\n

What is the impact of the floods?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Floods destroy lives and property, impede routine engagements and undermine the finances of governments, businesses and financial institutions.<\/p>\n

What are the associated issues?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

This raises two important issues that go to the heart of India\u2019s urban design.<\/p>\n

P<\/strong>oor state of our urban infrastructure, with city planning and design lagging population and income growth.<\/strong> In most cities, that bedrock of support is out of sync with the demands of the user population and therefore under severe stress.<\/p>\n

Given the rapid pace of urbanization in India the strain will only worsen in the years ahead unless apt investments are made in urban physical and social infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Lack of planning for future contingencies<\/strong>: The second big issue is that ongoing public projects to plug gaps may not be building adequate space for future contingencies. We need to test the resilience of current infra projects against likely future scenarios of climate change. For example<\/strong>, if mean sea levels rise, as expected, are Mumbai or Chennai prepared for the consequences?<\/p>\n

A related worry is our lack of emphasis on institutionalizing green investments and systems,<\/strong> whether it is buildings or roads.<\/p>\n

Source<\/strong>: This post is based on the article \u201cWater water everywhere and we must stop to think<\/strong>\u201d published in Livemint<\/strong> on 30th Sep 21<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Synopsis: Floods have begun to affect an increasing area of India with rising intensity and frequency. Urban infrastructure is under severe pressure, and it\u2019s unclear if we are prepared for worse. Introduction Incidents of floods in urban areas have been increasing year after year in India. Rainy season flooding in metro cities like Mumbai and… Continue reading Water water everywhere and we must stop to think<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[411,216,8654,286],"class_list":["post-138695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-disaster-management","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-urban-flooding","tag-water-crisis","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}