3 min learnJul 7, 2026 06:00 AM IST
First printed on: Jul 7, 2026 at 06:00 AM IST
For Mumbaikars, there’s a grim familiarity to the disaster unfolding within the metropolis that has taken at the least seven lives up to now 5 days. Relentless rain has submerged roads, inundated houses in low-lying neighbourhoods, delayed commuters, and compelled academic institutes to droop lessons and examinations. The India Meteorological Division has warned of extra rain over the subsequent three days, elevating fears of additional flooding within the nation’s monetary capital.
Constructed on what have been as soon as seven islands, a lot of Mumbai is land reclaimed from the ocean. Giant components of the metropolis lie only some metres above sea degree. City enlargement has disrupted the town’s intricate hydrological community — creeks, salt pans and wetlands that used to soak up the rain earlier than steadily releasing it into the ocean. Throughout each spell of intense rainfall, water tries to movement alongside the erstwhile water channels — that explains the common inundation of areas like Hindmata, Kurla, Sion and components of the western suburbs. After the devastating floods of 2005, the town’s directors did provoke significant modifications — pumping stations have been put in, and forecasting techniques strengthened. Nonetheless, regardless of being revamped on giant stretches, Mumbai’s drainage community is ill-equipped to cope with quick however intense bursts of rainfall. The storm-water system depends on gravity to empty water into the ocean. This mechanism comes aside when heavy downpour coincides with excessive tide, like up to now few days — the seawater rises above the drainage outfall and pushes it again.
The predicaments of Mumbai’s directors are just like these of their counterparts in a number of components of the world — it’s more and more turning into obvious that bettering drainage techniques alone doesn’t provide safety towards local weather vagaries. China’s Sponge Metropolis coverage, adopted after the Beijing floods of 2012, tries to deal with this problem by enhancing the water retention capability of the nation’s city centres — changing concrete pavements with permeable ones, restoring city wetlands and creating synthetic lakes to retailer rainwater. Planners within the Netherlands’ low-lying cities have additionally been progressive. As an alternative of solely strengthening conventional flood defences, they’ve created on a regular basis facilities like water squares — these acquire water throughout episodes of utmost rain, whereas doubling as recreation centres through the dry season — and incentivised the development of inexperienced roofs. Mumbai’s municipal company, too, has lake restoration initiatives on its agenda. Nonetheless, “blue-green infrastructure” stays largely a distinct segment idea in most components of India, together with in its monetary capital. The nation’s city centres want housing, transport, industrial districts and fashionable infrastructure. The duty for planners and directors is to design them in a way that doesn’t render cities defenceless towards excessive climate.
