Making Cities Safe against the Curse of Urban Flooding

Abstract

Led by  uncontrolled migration, ever increasing urabanisation, unplanned urban growth, increased fossil fuel driven mechanical mobility, destroying existing flora& fauna,   marginalizing nature, rapidly changing climate and obsolete draining systems, globally cities are becoming  increasingly unsafe, under the ever increasing threat and challenges  posed by repeated incidences of  urban flooding. Floods are known to play havoc with human living, adversely impacting cities, physically, socially, economically and environmentally. Floods are known to destroy and damage essential urban  infrastructures besides marginalizing, built environment, flora and fauna. Causing enormous loss of human and animal life, damaging built environment, disrupting critical services, and derailing human living,  economy and employment at local level, underscores the criticality and urgency of  perpetually  managing the urban flooding. Considered as elixir of life, in this era of climate change and global warming, water has emerged as the greatest threat and challenge to the sustainability of urban settlements and human living. Looking at the challenges posed by the urban flooding ,there is an urgent need  to  study the  causes,   outline impacts, and  define potential mitigation strategies to minimise and eliminate the  menace  of flooding from urban areas. Considering the need and importance of  making cities safe against the natural and manmade disasters perpetuated by flooding, paper tries to examine the role , relevance and importance of  rationalizing urban planning , carrying  out  development based on site suitability analysis, using options of retaining  rather than draining water, rationalizing urbanisation and  adopting nature based solutions besides involving communities to make cities safe  against  flooding.