What Pune Floods Are Teaching Us About Building Climate-Resilient Cities

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Pune is currently facing severe weather as the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued an alert for extremely heavy rains. Tragically, several fatalities have been reported due to rain-related incidents, and low-lying areas are experiencing flooding.

Rescue efforts are underway in affected neighbourhoods, particularly in Ekta Nagar, as authorities and the NDRF (National Disaster Response Force) mobilise to assist residents.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sixth Assessment report published in 2022, urban areas face high climate risks from sea level rise, cyclones, intense rainfall leading to floods, heat waves, and drought.

Unplanned urbanisation combined with poor infrastructure increases the vulnerability of cities to climate risks, particularly in developing nations.

The global impacts of climate change will cost several million dollars, and flood exposure in coastal cities alone across the world will cost around $52 billion by 2050.

Pune faced significant disruption on Thursday last week, with intense rainfall averaging over 200 mm within 24 hours, triggered by an extraordinary deluge in catchment areas.

The surrounding Tamhini Ghats recorded a remarkable 556 mm of rain, setting a new record. Other regions also experienced heavy precipitation, including Lavasa Valley with 453.5 mm and Lonavala with 322.5 mm.

This intense rainfall led to widespread flooding across Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, and nearby districts, with large areas submerged underwater. The Raigad district similarly faced heavy rain. In this context, Shivajinagar reported its third-highest rainfall in 66 years at 114.1 mm, nearing the historical July record of 130.4 mm from 1958.

The extreme weather not only disrupted daily life but also triggered landslides, underscoring the urgent need for enhanced flood management and strategic planning in response to the growing unpredictability of weather patterns linked to climate change.

Addressing Flood Risks

Government schemes like AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation) and Smart City mission, since their launch in 2014, and JNNURM since 2006, have particularly aimed at improving open and urban green spaces and stormwater drain infrastructure to reduce urban flooding caused mainly by extreme rainfall events.

Despite the government's Rs 82,000 crore plus under the AMRUT scheme from the last decade, most cities are still at climate risk.

A study of 42 Indian cities in 2020 showed a severe decline in open and green spaces and a high risk of urban flooding due to loss of natural drainage. The loss of trees and green spaces also increases the urban heat effect.

Construction of stormwater drains along roads and buildings is now a major expenditure in cities incur to avoid urban floods. Still, most cities lag in the required stormwater drains, especially to drain surface runoff from extreme rainfall events that occur at about one in a hundred years.

Coastal cities like Kochi, Chennai, and Cuttack are particularly short of stormwater drains and given their low-lying geography and sea level in some places, the flood risk is very high.

Climate researchers have argued that though the Mumbai floods of 2005 were due to extreme rainfall, the severe impacts were entirely due to the lack of open spaces and natural drainage systems, which were lost to urban buildings. The same is the case with many cities, including Chennai, where the loss of the Pallikarnai marshland caused the city’s flood risk.

Many of these municipal corporations don’t generate adequate resources, are financially weak enough to invest in stormwater drains, don’t even have elected local bodies, and largely depend on central funds like grants in aid and funding from national schemes like AMRUT.

Community participation is essential in urban resilience building. This includes enhancing their awareness of climate risks and resilience strategies, participating in local planning and decision-making, and making community-led initiatives like rainwater harvesting or solid waste management.

Except for a few case studies in Indian cities, there are not many successful community participations. The notable is the Kudumbashree work in Kochi on solid waste management that, in turn, helped in preventing storm water drains from getting clogged from waste and the 'Eyes on Canal' project in Chennai that involved NGOs and local communities in the design of solutions to restore Buckingham Canal. A few lake restoration initiatives in different cities are recent efforts.

According to the UN Urbanisation Report 2014, India will likely add another 400 million to its urban population by 2050. With rising climate risks and the associated economic losses, building climate-resilient cities is an urgent need for India.

Future urban planning and development that considers natural drainages, water bodies, and urban green spaces like parks and forests. These are also known as Nature Based Solutions (NBS) for climate resilience, which are increasingly getting recognised even in global forums like the UN-Habitat.  After the floods, Chennai and Kochi have tried to build resilience through the blue-green infrastructure.

Creating trusts like the Surat City Climate Change Trust in each city could also facilitate knowledge exchange on risks and resilience initiatives to be taken by all stakeholders, including residents, NGOs and scientific institutions.

The government of India has recognised the increasing infrastructure needs in cities, such as roads, sewerage networks, and stormwater drains.

It has launched the Urban Infrastructure Development Fund in 2023-24 to finance second- and third-tier cities to Rs 10,000 crore per annum. The Fifteenth Finance Commission states that urban local bodies improve their revenue through taxes and look for support grants through loans and grants from the State and other agencies.

International Climate Financing for Enhancing Urban Infrastructure

Recognising the high investment needs in cities, the government of India, in addition to domestic efforts, is also necessary to access international climate finance through grants and loans from institutions like the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to improve critical urban infrastructure. Few projects from India have accessed GCF, and none are specific to urban resilience.

While funding alone is insufficient, it is important to periodically monitor and evaluate the performance of schemes like AMRUT, the smart city mission and the National Mission on Sustainable Habitat.

Critical infrastructure like national highways, airports, power-lines, and railways fall outside the purview of urban local bodies. Regular audits of their operations and maintenance by the National Central Building Research Institute, the Central Electricity Authority, and state agencies like power distribution corporations are necessary to reduce their risk of damage from urban floods.

(Dhanapal Govindarajulu is a postgraduate researcher at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester. Anjal Prakash is a Clinical Associate Professor (Research) and Research Director, Bharti Institute of Public Policy, India School of Business (ISB). He teaches sustainability at ISB and contributes to IPCC reports.)