Understanding Flood Resilience in Urban Context-A Case of Chennai City, India

Abstract

In recent times, incessant and torrential rainfall has brought devastating floods to many cities in India which resulted in disastrous effect on the inhabitants and damage to the infrastructure. The massive scale of anthropogenic interventions has contributed to changes in climate extremes, global sea level rise etc. In addition to poor urban planning, constructions of illegal, unregulated substandard informal settlements in low lying areas (prone to flooding) are the main factors causing flood disaster. The significant changes in rainfall pattern in the past few years that hit Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu lead to worst floods in 2015 and left parts of the city underwater. The devastating effect of this flood included loss of human life, damage to social and physical infrastructure, environmental and economic setbacks that took months to reverse. This research paper primarily has identified two areas in Chennai which are located in similar topographic terrain and analyzed the impact and the intensity of damage of the flash floods of 2015. By two contrasting results this research tries to understand the interrelationship between the planning guidelines and geological context, basin size and storm patterns to mitigate flood risks and work out holistic and realistic solutions to address long term flooding issues.