Earth, Atmosphere & Environment Sciences
Title : | Analysis of urban flood risks for coastal and non-coastal regions under future climate scenarios: an attempt to promote sponge cities using nature-based solutions |
Area of research : | Earth, Atmosphere & Environment Sciences |
Principal Investigator : | Dr. Shray Pathak, Indian Institute Of Technology (IIT) Ropar, Punjab |
Timeline Start Year : | 2022 |
Timeline End Year : | 2024 |
Contact info : | shraypathak@gmail.com |
Equipments : | Workstation Computer
Workstation Computer |
Details
Executive Summary : | Flooding is a serious natural disaster in urban areas. In the recent past, many global cities have witnessed extreme flood events causing losses to human lives and infrastructure. Several attempts have been by researchers to analyse and investigate factors responsible for these flood events. Among several other reasons, high intensity rainfall occurring over a short duration is found to be a common factor resulting in a devastating flood. According to the latest report of IPCC, an increase in extreme precipitation has been anticipated in the coming future. The co-occurrence of riverine and coastal flooding leads to compound events with significant impacts on civilians and property in the high risk areas. Climate change could further impact the severity of the compound flood hazard through higher extreme sea levels and river flows. Therefore, we need to investigate possible future flood events under different climate change scenarios. Considering the anthropogenic influences on changing climate, conventional frequency analysis approaches under stationary assumption are no longer valid. A non-stationary treatment for flood/rainfall frequency analysis is necessary in order to produce dependable results for future climate conditions. Despite of multiple studies focusing on flood modelling and flood risk assessment of major urban cities around the globe, there lacks an integrated risk monitoring and early warning system for urban flooding. Moreover, factors controlling floods in a non-coastal urban area can be significantly different from that of coastal floods. High tides along with low intensity rainfall can cause flood like situation in coastal region, whereas, fluvial floods are mainly characterized by heavy rainfall events and inadequate reservoir operation. Thus, the framework for development of an integrated risk assessment system should be different for the two landscapes. Management interventions using nature-based solutions are required to reduce risks spatially especially at critical locations by sponge city concept (i.e. Low Impact Development techniques, flood risk management, stormwater harvesting, and water reuse during dry seasons). There is a need to simultaneously consider other aspects such as social, cultural, infrastructure, environmental along with economical that are equally hinged to this disaster. With changing climate, cities respond differently to extreme scenarios according to their landscapes, climatic and physiography patterns. Therefore, this study focuses on deploying strategic planning according to spatial assessment and public opinions. It is also required to correlate responses of coastal versus non-coastal cities towards extremes. Finally, management interventions using nature-based solutions are required to embrace flooding as an opportunity and to transform impervious land to sponge cities. |
Total Budget (INR): | 15,24,560 |
Organizations involved