Hill or city, urban planning cannot be an afterthought – Analysing the links between urban planning and disasters | 14th February 2023 | UPSC Daily Editorial Analysis

What's the article about?

• It talks about the link between poor urban planning and the increasing number of disasters (landslides and flooding) in urban areas.

Relevance:

• GS1: Urbanization, their problems and their remedies;
• GS3: Disaster and Disaster Management;
• Prelims

Context:

• Weather patterns are becoming more extreme as a result of climate change.
• This has been reflecting extreme weather events such as high rainfall, cold and hot waves, etc.
• This has also resulted in increased instances of disasters such as urban flooding and landslides.
• But climate change is not the only reason; poor urban planning is also to blame.

Landslides and Urban Planning:

• Land subsidence incidents in hilly urban India are becoming increasingly common.
• An estimated 12.6% of India’s land area is prone to landslides, especially in Sikkim, West Bengal and Uttarakhand.
• Urban policy is making this worse, according to the National Institute of Disaster Management (and highlighted in the National Landslide Risk Management Strategy, September 2019).
• Construction in such a landscape is often driven by building bye-laws that ignore local geological and environmental factors.
• Consequently, land use planning in India’s Himalayan towns and the Western Ghats is often ill-conceived, adding to slope instability.

Solutions to tackle landslide issues:

• Creating credible databases:
  • This the first step toward enhancing urban resilience with regard to land subsidence.
  • The overall landslide risk needs to be mapped at the granular level.
  • The Geological Survey of India has conducted a national mapping exercise (1:50,000 scale, with each centimetre denoting approximately 0.5 km).
  • Urban policymakers need to take this further, with additional detail and localisation (1:1,000 scale).

• Limiting scale of infrastructure projects:
  • Areas with high landslide risk should not be allowed to expand large infrastructurepush to reduce human interventions and adhere to carrying capacity.
  • Further, any site development in hazardous zones needs assessment by a geologist (with respect to soil suitability and slope stability) and an evaluation of its potential impact on buildings that are nearby.
  • It may need corrective measures (retention walls), with steps to prohibit construction in hazardous areas.

Flooding and urban planning:

• Seasonal rain is now increasing in intensity. Most of the urban areas are built over the natural flood plains of the rivers.
• When planned townships are approved, with a distinct lack of concern for natural hazards, such incidents are bound to occur.
• In Delhi, an estimated 9,350 households live in the Yamuna floodplains, while the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report of March 2022 has highlighted the risk Kolkata faces due to a rise in sea levels.
• The combination of poor urban planning and climate change will mean that many of India’s cities could face devastating flooding.

Solutions to tackle flooding issues:

• Urban planners will have to step back from filling up water bodies, canals and drains and focus, instead, on enhancing sewerage and stormwater drain networks.
• Existing sewerage networks need to be reworked and expanded to enable wastewater drainage in low-lying urban geographies.
• Rivers that overflow need to be desilted regularly along with a push for coastal walls in areas at risk from sea rise.
• Greater spending on flood-resilient architecture (river embankments, flood shelters in coastal areas and flood warning systems) is necessary.
• Protecting “blue infra” areas, i.e., places that act as natural sponges for absorbing surface runoff, allowing groundwater to be recharged, is a must.
• As rainfall patterns and intensity change, urban authorities will need to invest in simulation capacity to determine flooding hotspots and flood risk maps.

Way Forward:

• Urban India does not have to embrace such risks. Instead, cities need to incorporate environmental planning and enhance natural open spaces.
• Urban master plans need to consider the impact of climate change and extreme weather.
• Urban authorities in India should assess and update disaster risk and preparedness planning. Early warning systems will also be critical.
• Finally, each city needs to have a disaster management framework in place, with large arterial roads that allow people and goods to move freely.