Flood is a natural disaster caused by unusually heavy rainfall lashing an area at a rapid pace and filling the area even as the excess water is unable either to infiltrate beneath the ground or drain safely. Chennai, the South Indian city, recently witnessed unprecedented rainfall in a century. Nature’s fury coupled with a development culture that pays no heed to environmental sustainability is widely blamed for the natural disaster. In light of individuals asking the legitimate questions on the indiscriminate use of precious natural resources and the scant apprehension for the environment, the floods continue to remind what would happen when nature’s own path is tampered with the greed of man. Is the action of town planners in blaming as against development individuals who raise their voice against unsustainable development, like environmentalists, social activists and the civil public justified? As popularly believed, demolition of nature’s ability to discharge runoff on its own because of reckless and unplanned urbanization has finally inflicted an inconsistent toll in the Chennai floods.
The South Indian floods, attributed to heavy rainfall, devastated the Coromandel Coast region around the city of Chennai in December 2015. Chennai, located on a flat coastal plain at an average elevation of six meters above mean sea level, usually receives monsoon rainfall during the months of October, November and December. The city and the adjoining plains were severely affected by the monsoon rains in December 2015 that claimed over 270 lives and displaced 1.8 million people (Saravanan & Chander, 2015). The disaster was reported to have caused a loss of over five billion U.S dollars. The rainfall that caused havoc during the monsoon season of 2015, up to the month of November, exceeded a hundred year high of 108.8 cm. Besides, the rainfall in the month of December 2015 too was three times higher than the annual average rainfall for the particular month with December 1 experiencing continuous rains throughout the day. More importantly, Chennai and the adjoining areas experienced non-stop heavy rainfall for 17 days.
No doubt, the rainfall during the monsoon season was too heavy with a potential to cause severe loss to human lives and other infrastructures. In addition, the limited capacity of the infrastructures was simply incapable of countering the devastative intensity of the heavy rainfall. For instance, the sewage infrastructure system originally designed for a population of 0.65 million was simply powerless to cater to the needs of the present day population of more than 7 million, as claimed by the Chennai Corporation. Rapid urbanization and the influx of migrant population in search of employment have reduced the number of water bodies, which included natural and artificial water storage ponds, from 650 to 27 (Saravanan & Chander, 2015). Similarly, the length of storm drains has shrunk from 2,847 kilometers to a mere 855 kilometers. Also, the land use pattern in most of the areas has changed, replacing green cover with pavements and buildings. Under this background, the torrential rains that struck Chennai and the adjoining plains during the monsoon 2015 became more devastative to the population and the ecology of the region.
The affected areas in the floods included areas adjoining water courses and individuals residing in houses built after leveling water bodies like ponds. Migrant laborers settled on lands encroached by the water bodies were the worst affected in the disaster. Similarly, in the suburban and adjoining areas, the landless communities, who were living in huts constructed of mud, have lost lives and possessions. Since the natural disaster resulted in damaging the water supply, individual families that depended on public water distribution system were hard hit by the disaster. As the public water sources were severely damaged, they were forced either to walk several miles to fetch potable water or to drink contaminated water available on drainage channels and go sick. Children, women, differently enabled and the elderly were certain prominent categories of individuals affected by the monsoon floods. Also, goats, cows and poultry kept by the communities were severely affected by the floods.
The major implication of this natural disaster is attributed to an urban development culture that gives no consideration for proper planning. Urbanization leads to flooding as the resultant impermeable catchment increases the peak flood by three times (Gupta and Nair, 2010). In other words, flooding is caused by the drastic increase in flow time of the rain water due to manipulation of the traditional water courses. Urbanization by recklessly damaging the natural resources like agricultural fields and filling the water bodies is sure to invite flooding as the Chennai experience proved time and again over the past century (Lavanya, 2012). The aftermath of the Chennai floods include the following: increased water demand to cater to the need of the population; increased drainage burdening the existing drainage channels, rivers and lakes thereby endangering the natural bird and fish species thriving in the waters; decreased infiltration rate affects the recharging of wells and other water bodies which adversely affects the farming operations in the adjoining localities. More importantly, loss of vegetal cover checks the natural water drainage through plants as evapotranspiration.
The floods that affected Chennai city and the suburbs are attributed to the combined effect of nature and man. Even as man has no control upon the heavy rains that lashed the region, responsible use of land and water bodies in the past would have definitely controlled the damages to a significant level. Urbanization therefore needs to be based on an integrated approach. In other words, integration of engineering measures, land and environment management coupled with impeccable emergency management would help fight the damaging effects of heavy rains like the ones that attacked Chennai during the last monsoon season.
References
Gupta, A. K. and Nair, S. S., Flood risk and context of land uses: Chennai city case. Journal of Geographic Regional Planing, 2010, 3 (12), 365–372.
Lavanya, A.K. (2012). Urban Flood Management – A Case Study of Chennai City. Journal of Architecture Research. 2 (6): 115-121
Saravanan, J., & Chander, N.K. (2015). Chennai Floods (2015) and Possible Solutions
