Cities in the world over, especially in developing countries are expanding rapidly without any effective planning. Natural drainage (natural water passages and stream courses) of the areas cities are occupying has been disrupted largely. The large scale disturbance of natural drainage is resulting in urban flooding causing heavy losses of lives, properties and other assets. A recent example of serious urban flooding is that happened in Karachi city of Pakistan during the last week of August 2020. This incident can be ranked among one of the extreme urban floodings which caused huge multifarious losses that are difficult to estimate easily. However, the present question is how the problem of urban flooding can be overcome and losses can be minimised in future. What kind of strategy governments should opt to do this. Expert opinions and suggestions can be worthwhile and helpful.
Dear Asad Ali Khan, this is not an easy question to answer. Although there is research and moreover experience with urban flood strategies. In 2015 I was invited by the UNDRR (disaster risk reduction) to do a guest webinar on this matter. Perhaps this gives you some examples and references; https://www.preventionweb.net/experts/guest/collection/45532
Another source of inspiration more focussed on urban flood resilience in Asian Cities, is the 'Water as Leverage' programme; https://waterasleverage.org/ I was part of the Defacto team, which focussed on the case of Khulna in Bangladesh.
Dear Nanco Dolman thanks for your helpful response. Yes, urban flooding is a very serious problem and hard to overcome but should we leave it as it is. At least an effective planning must be in action for future expansion of cities and for new cities.
Respetar la red de drenaje natural y controles de presas rompepicos aguas arriba.
Of course, some flooding is the result of urban development itself. I recall living in a city for four years during which time we experienced three, hundred-year floods. The coin was bent. That is, the growth of the urban area had changed the probabilities so that a so-called hundred-year event was much more common.
However, the much larger problem is urban development in known flood zones. Other uses should be considered for flood zones. Make sure that the public sector does not facilitate location in flood zones. That is, don't build roads, sewers, etc. in flood zones and make sure that there are no subsidies for building in a flood zone. For example, do not provide governmental flood insurance in these areas.
Thanks Peter F. Colwell for your worthwhile answer that is more concerned to urban planning. In principle, I agree with you and governments should be very strict about the use of flood zones. However, in the countries where almost half of the populations are on and below the poverty line, slums are frequent, residences and residential land is expensive, land mafias are active, level of awareness is low, urban planning is not very effective, population density is high, governments are weak or reluctant, and so on, implementation of strict rules becomes more difficult. In such kind of countries, cities rapidly expand irregularly and on all types of land with out any differentiation between risky and safer places. What we can do about such kind of area/countries, I think is really a hard task.
Asad, please note that I did not suggest the use of strict zoning rules. Instead, I suggested ways to not facilitate the occupation of flood zones.
Peter
Thanks Peter
Yes I got your point/idea. Facilitation in occupation of flood zones is also a big factor in developing countries responsible of urban flooding.
In light of such a progress, embedding flood damage estimation into urban planning could be considered as a strategy for better flood risk management. To develop such a new strategy, data and methodology for more accurate damage estimation are required. For better flood risk management and damage reduction, better planning for urban development is needed that takes account of urbanization effects explicitly and adequately
Rostam Saberifar thanks for expressing your views about a very serious issue. Yes flood risk and flood damages estimation should be a part of urban planning strategy.
Also, for a better flood management solution without major compromising of human and nature assets, more studies are needed in identifying the interactions of floods and culture improvements, and vice versa, the researches on how the culture and people’s mindset would proactively deal with floods and harmoniously live with floods should therefore be strengthened as well in the future.
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