Easy solution for ‘vulnerable’ cities

To avoid urban crises escalating into catastrophes, city governments must work on building resilient infrastructure, robust decentralised governance systems, and most importantly, ensuring local biodiversity and the environment thrive rather than gradually diminish.

Social media and newspapers are flooded with memes of footage of urban floods in Delhi, Gurgaon, and many other Indian cities. After short spells of showers, urban streets are getting transformed into ‘lakes’, and, in some places, cesspools, as rainwater mixes with leaking sewers. This is primarily due to the encroachment of waterbodies and wetlands, coupled with inadequate storm water drainage systems that do not function at full capacity. As a result, a few hours of rain escalate into an urban crisis and, at times, a disaster.

Disasters and urban preparedness

What are disasters? The book ‘Cities and Disasters’, published in 2017, defines disasters as “any event causing great harm, damage, or suffering.” The book categorises such events into three types: crises, disasters, and catastrophes. Crises are defined as small-scale events with relatively limited effects on a population. Disasters are medium-to-large-scale events, either natural or human-caused. Catastrophes are profound events that affect a broad area of land and effectively render local and state governments unable to respond effectively.

It is clear that if our urban systems are not ready to respond effectively, any small crisis can turn into a disaster or catastrophe. India must manage its cities better if it has to become a developed nation by 2047. For this, national and state governments must enhance decentralised response mechanisms by focusing on disaster preparedness, building local resilience, and making policies for robust infrastructure. Cities’ actions and inactions determine the outcomes of the disasters. Urban centres cannot continue adding infrastructure and expanding cities to accommodate more people. Cities must assess their carrying ‘population capacity’ and become resilient to absorb impending future shocks of natural or man-made disasters.

Our cities are gulping natural waterways, traditional ponds, and lakes to make way for built environments. Meanwhile, on the other side, there is no effective management of storm water. The existing drainage system remains clogged, ineffective, and has less carrying capacity than required. What happened in Delhi’s Old Rajinder Nagar was repeated just a few days later—the area was waterlogged again. Why do cities refuse to learn from their mistakes?

Delhi’s waterbodies

According to the Wetland Authority’s 2021 enumeration, Delhi had 1045 water bodies needing rejuvenation and proper maintenance. These water bodies fall under the jurisdiction of 16 different agencies. Recently, the Delhi government added 322 more waterbodies to this list, bringing the total to 1367 that need rejuvenation in the national capital. However, a news report in the Times of India indicates that there is confirmed information on only 344 of these water bodies. When asked about the waterbodies from the initial list of 1,045 that have been built over and ceased to exist, an official in the department said in the report, “In place of the waterbodies, we found residential complexes, parks, even schools. But we will not delist any of them but make alternative plans to ensure the establishments at least conserve rainwater and recharge the groundwater.” Currently, a majority of these waterbodies, almost 75 per cent, are non-existent on ground, as their dry beds have been encroached upon for residential complexes, parks, parking, and other developments.

The Delhi HC has taken note of this issue. Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet PS Arora of Delhi High Court stated in their order that the court was informed that “several waterbodies out of 1,045 listed do not exist on the ground as of date.” The court has ordered the Delhi government to complete the geo-tagging and geo-referencing of these lakes and ponds by May 15 and finish their rejuvenation by Dec 31.

The Centre for Youth Culture Law and Environment (Cycle India), along with the RWA of Jhuljhuli village in southwest Delhi, did a survey of waterbodies in Delhi. It was reported that only 327 water bodies currently hold water, while 345 are dry and completely devoid of water. Additionally, 302 water bodies received negative health ratings due to partial or complete encroachment.

The present situation clearly indicates the seriousness of the problem in the national capital. Perhaps this is the reason the city faces a water crisis in the summer and deluges a few months later every year.

Solutions possible

In the early 1990s, newspapers frequently reported on the depletion of the ozone layer and its harmful effects on humans. Dr Susan Solomon from the USA and other scientists had visited Antarctica and submitted their key findings to understand what was depleting the ozone layer and how to address it. When scientific reports established the threat was real and avoidable, all nations agreed and decided to phase out chemical substances responsible for the depletion of the ozone layer.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme, the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer is the landmark multilateral environmental agreement that regulates the production and consumption of nearly 100 man-made chemicals referred to as ozone-depleting substances (ODS). When released into the atmosphere, those chemicals damage the stratospheric ozone layer, Earth’s protective shield that protects humans and the environment from harmful levels of ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Adopted on 16 September 1987, the Protocol is to date one of the rare treaties to achieve universal ratification.

Nowadays we don’t hear about ozone depletion as the ozone layer is healing. Experts say that it will be completely restored by 2065. This progress was made possible through collective global efforts. Dr Solomon said in an interview to the Vox channel that there are three ‘Ps’—personal, perceptible, and practical—and when they meet, we do well at addressing environmental problems.” The threat of ozone layer depletion was personal due to its potential to cause skin cancer, perceptible as the ozone hole was visible through satellite imagery, and practical as countries could phase out ODS by adopting alternative options. As a result, the trend reversed, and a catastrophe was avoided.

This story is inspiring. If humanity can reverse ozone layer depletion, they can definitely rejuvenate water bodies on Earth and protect themselves from catastrophes. I remain hopeful.

Our cities are gulping natural waterways, traditional ponds, and lakes to make way for built environments. Meanwhile, on the other side, there is no effective management of stormwater. The existing drainage system remains clogged, ineffective, and has less carrying capacity than required. What happened in Delhi’s Old Rajinder Nagar was repeated just a few days later—the area was waterlogged again. Why do cities refuse to learn from their mistakes?