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).
Aizawl Case study:
Gangtok Case study:
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- 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.
Case studies:
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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.
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