Flood risk in India
India isn’t among the 20 countries whose settlements are most exposed to flood hazards.
But India was the third highest contributor to global settlements, after China and the U.S.
Third — after China and Vietnam — among countries with new settlements expanding into flood-prone areas, all from 1985 to 2015.
India is at significant risk of flood-related problems that could worsen in the coming years if the country wasn’t careful.
Its estimated that the Bengaluru floods that year cost the city ₹225 crore.
Flood risk in India
In 1901-2022, the city’s population grew from around 1.6 lakh to more than a crore.
To accommodate these people, the city expanded ,but new localities overlooked the local topography.
Who are most affected?
The risks are disproportionately higher for those living in informal structures.
The geography of environmental risk is also the geography of informal low-income housing.
Informal housing in cities is on land that is vacant and less desirable, so that they are not immediately driven off.
An important reason is expanded urbanization into flood-prone areas.
This kind of development is environmentally unsustainable.
When environmental regulations are applied to new constructions, they are often applied only to big infrastructure projects and not to medium- and small-scale modifications of localities.
This contradicts the notion that certain localities are more flood-prone and that flooding and flood-risk are locality-level issues.
People commonly violate existing government regulations.
Rise in eco-tourism resorts on forest land and the construction of large structures, including government buildings and even religious structures, on rivers’ floodplains.
What is to be done?
Scientist cautioned that we can no longer avoid expanding into flood-prone areas.
Some forms of adaptation are necessary, and they need to differentiate between low-income residents and unauthorized structures erected for the elite.
Every city needs to do a proper scientific mapping of the flood prone areas.
Urban governments need to make housing in such areas more flood-resilient and protect low-income housing.
riverside settlements that use stilt houses, like those used by the Mishing and the Miyah communities along the Brahmaputra.
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