With all the construction and lack of drainage, the only open areas for water to go are the roads. Once they get there, there is no place to exit also.
BHPian Mystic recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
This subject has been dealt with in various threads from different perspectives. In this monsoon in 2023, I had seen live how a couple of hours of rain can bring metros to their knees.
Being a civil engineer myself a couple of decades back but jumped to IT, the civil engineer in me makes my blood boil on why we are in such a mess now.
No rain, no crops and no food. We need rain but we need to deal with them. If nature is not in favour of us due to our geographical position on this planet, we as humans must find a solution to adapt to such situations. Just see the Netherlands (which means land below sea level) on how they are managing the situation. Even in our own Hyderabad, the stormwater drains created hundreds of years back by Nizam’s work perfectly compared to the newer drains created in the last couple of decades.
Why does this concern come up during monsoons only and everybody forgets after the rains are over? I still remember a couple of years back when Chennai was devastated by the rains. I was lucky that I left our Chennai home for Bangalore home a few hours before the complete Porur area was flooded. My in-laws in Chennai were marooned and NDRF has to come in boats to help them.
What is the root cause of the present situation? During rains, it is frightening to take our automobiles on subways. Is there no permanent solution? After having searched on internet about the Mother Nature and El Nino effect on India during monsoon, I conclude that more than nature, it is more of a bad planning and careless construction of buildings disobeying the basic rules of nature on the occupation of water bodies with concrete structures obstructing the free flow of stormwater.
In our civil engineering class, our Professor told us that highways are called highways because they are built at higher elevations and should not be immersed in water during rainfall hindering smooth transportation.
Maybe we as Indians are adapting to the situation in our own way as automobile owners by buying SUVs with higher CG so that we can wade through the inevitable waters in monsoons year after year with no solution on the horizon.
Here’s what BHPian RM Motorsports had to say on the matter:
Here is my view and how things changed around me and resulting in flooding in my lane. I have been staying in Matunga, Mumbai for the last 40 years. The lane I am staying had all 3 story buildings and each building had a compound with trees and gardens. Ever ever my lane been flooded in the last 5 years? In the last 10 years, all three-story buildings around have been redeveloped and turned into 8-15 story towers. The compound gardens of old buildings have disappeared and become parking lots.
For the past 5 years, I have noticed whenever it rains heavily for a few hours, my lane starts flooding. All the rainwater which was absorbed by the gardens around old buildings now flows back on the road. The foundation of all new buildings is now all concrete which prevents rainwater from absorbing into the ground.
So ya I figure out that one reason for easy flooding is concrete jungle coming around everywhere which is preventing rainwater to get absorbed into the ground like in earlier times. I would say flooding is somewhat MAN-MADE.
Here’s what BHPian shankar.balan had to say on the matter:
The main reason is that all stormwater drains and other drainage systems are clogged with leaves, debris, litter and the like.
Our inland waterways, canals and the like, are all absolutely full of litter, muck, debris, waste and sewage as well. Plastic bottles, coated paper tea cups and plates from roadside vendors and sundry flotsam and jetsam make for a potent clogging mix.
It’s also a fact that our corrupt officials and the powerful builder-politician nexus allow all low-lying areas which were once water catchment areas, to become built up completely.
For a perspective on inland waterways and canals just take a look at the Cooum River and Buckingham Canal in Madras. Or any of the small canals crisscrossing different parts of Bangalore. And ref low lying areas all built up take a good look around
Arumbakkam and Palavanthangal in Madras and S T Bed, KR Puram, Yemalur, Challaghatta, HSR Sector 5-6-7 and the like in Bangalore.
There is nowhere for the excess runoff of water, to go. So water backs up and causes flooding during heavy rain.
All the newer areas built after the 1980s are prone to these troubles. Whereas the areas which came up in earlier times are not.
Most of these woes are self-inflicted man-made – like continuous lifelong ‘self-goals’.
Here’s what BHPian Rajeevraj had to say on the matter:
The reasons are fairly straightforward:
We just keep on constructing. There is absolutely no control.
Continuous construction may be inevitable considering our country and population dynamics, the larger problem comes when we don’t carefully consider where we build. Whether it is lake beds, buffer zones, valleys, hillsides, or sea shores.
Furthermore, when we construct, we don’t think about drainage and water runoff. We mostly go the opposite way, first, build out to the maximum and then we realize-Oh there is no drain network or it is not sufficient.
Extreme weather events are on the rise. This is a fairly new phenomenon. Where extreme weather events are happening more regularly. Even places which have handled heavy rains are unable to handle these extreme conditions.
Now coming to the roads themselves. With all the construction and lack of drainage, the only open areas for water to go are the roads. Once they get there, there is no place to exit also. So roads get flooded. In addition, poor quality work means that road construction standards are not met or maintained. Roads are supposed to slope slightly towards both sides. To allow water to run off quickly. Does not happen in most cases.
Solution? Difficult. Once the monsoons are over, the outage dies down and everyone forgets and the cycle repeats.
Keyword: Why Indian roads flood up so easily during heavy rains?