Drainage system is not enough; rather we need Sponge City

Let’s accept urban water logging and urban flooding is a new phenomenon in most of the cities in India without blaming any government. Be it Odisha, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Delhi or Gujrat, most of the cities of these states are struggling with same problem though there are different political parties in power. So, I mean, all of them are same as all the government, over the years have been failed to assume the challenges the urban India is facing and going to face. Most of them believed that infrastructure development is real development as many of us also followed these kinds of trends.

Again as the author has not much exposure to other cities during the time of the problem and as he does not understand these cities situation on first hand, the write up has been made keeping Bhubaneswar in mind. This is the birth city of the author and he is seeing all the up and downs of the city for last 30+ years. In childhood he was happy that there will be no flood in the city like his village and he is safe from this. But now he feels the village is much safer in regard to flood.

In recent times we have seen the city is struggling with water logging and flood if there is rain for few days; in many places for few hours also. Then what are the reasons for such a change in the town. The reasons are very simple in many cases; the author didn’t wish to discuss the scientific reasons here though these are the mostly due to climate change and its consequences.

If you will observe the city roads minutely you will see year after year the government is ensuring top up on the roads to maintain it. And by this the road heights are increasing every year. Now those houses were constructed quite higher than the roads are now pretty much lower than the roads. In these cases once there is heavy rain, the rain water or the storm water is entering the houses. This man made flood is the reason of faulty execution of plans. Instead of top up, the contractors need to clear the old rods and then they should construct a new one.?But that never ever happens and we the dumb citizens never raise our voice.

It’s not that the city is not having drains!! But the problem with the drains are, most of those are either encroached or don’t have proper end points. These are not even adequate in numbers. In some cases the drain levels are higher than the road levels. Then while construction they cover it permanently and within a year it get blocked and then they break the cover and reconstruct it and the game goes on. The drains are not capable enough to discharge the water. Many habitations lack drainage facilities also. Many drains over flows making the area water log.?

The land encroachment by the slum dwellers is another challenge. They usually occupy the lower lands those are available near to any habitations. These lower lands if remain as unused then these can handle a lot of water. But unfortunately the city has around 436 recognized slums (out of which 73% are unauthorized) and most of these are struggling with storm water during rainy season. And above that the state is providing the slum dwellers the land rights under Jaga Mission. It would be wise to provide them housing facilities as per their eligibility rather than occupying these lands.

This is always discussed and known to everyone. The city growth has gifted us many concrete structures and in many cases the water bodies have been encroached and converted into concrete structures. The natural system of water absorption has been completely stopped in many locations. As a result the houses constructed in those locations are getting marooned and these people are shouting about water logging and flood. They forget that they are actually staying in a natural water body and when there is rain water will come to those places and it will either make a flood or stay there for few days.

In Bhubaneswar the construction of integrated sewerage lines are like adding salt to injury. The JICA assisted project is happening in Odisha since last 15-20 years. In many places the contractors are tearing the road and leaving it as it is without repairing. These are contributing a lot to water logging in many locations of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack. No one knows when these works will be completed in these cities.

In the name of city beautification the service providers have used all the open lands near to the roads which once able to absorb some amount of rain water. Now everything is cement-concrete. So when there is rain the water flows on the road making it difficult for the vehicles to run. And the continuity of this destroys the road quickly and then government in the name of repair top up these with coal tar making the road higher than the houses and the flood situation continues. This is called vicious circle of urban flooding.

During the recent heavy rain and the water logging situation most of the news channels discussed that as there is no drains in Bhubaneswar, so people are facing such situations. They even organized discussions on and around that. However, only construction of drains will not solve the problem. The issues is not an engineering issue only, this has a social dimension also. Unless we address that, we are not going to reach at the solution.

At present we are getting less rain-days and heavy rains, this is true. This has contributed a lot to such situations. And it is said that due to the increase in temperature we are facing this. It is also said that an increase of 1 degree temperature will be resulted in 5% more rain. We are intentionally not listening about the climate challenges; hence the urban water management will remain a big challenge for coming years. So, the time has already come to think about sponge city which can absorb the excess water rather than the so called smart city. Then what is this sponge city?

A?sponge?city?is a?city?that is designed to passively absorb, clean and use rainfall in an ecologically friendly way. The associated techniques include absorbent roads, rooftop gardens, rainwater harvesting, rain gardens, green space, blue space such as ponds and lakes, adequate drainage system etc. Even the author wishes to include urban agriculture to this, which can use the excess water for growing food crops. In the name of smart city we don’t want city beautification at the cost of flood and water logging. The government needs to shift it attention now, this is high time for this.?