In a move that goes against current trends in the west, the Delhi Development Authority have announced they will be reducing the area of the floodplain’s for the city’s Yamuna river.
According to The Hindustan Times:
The DDA has issued a public notice to re-define the river zone, proposing to reduce the area from the current 9,700 hectares to 4,961 hectares. Construction and development will be allowed in the new area thus carved out.
In The Netherlands, making “Room for the River” is the foundation stone of the country’s whole approach to flood management. Other countries are beginning to follow suit. After the floods in Germany in June 2013, the German Environment minister Peter Altmaier promised more would be done to give room for rivers to flood.
Since then, New Orleans has announced a variety of measures across the city, under the title “Living with Water”.
The move in Delhi shows the problems faced by many authorities across the world in trying to make room for people and rivers. The logic behind the Delhi Development Authority’s decision is that it will legitimise the buildings and structures already in the floodplain areas. The DDA feel that those structures would otherwise remain and therefore it is better to regulate them to allow civil repairs and other such work not normally allowed in the protected river zone. In order to make these “river zone” buildings legitimate, the DDA have simply changed the map and the boundaries of the Yamuna river floodplains.
Some might say the decision is more cynical than to simply legitimise existing buildings. Once the floodplain boundaries have been pushed closer to the river, according to the The Hindustan Times:
Construction and development will be allowed in the new area thus carved out.
Their report goes on to quite Manoj Misra of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan:
“Why cannot the authorities allow repairs without attempting to grab the floodplains? If the slicing happens, the existing built-up area, now regulated, in the actual floodplains will increase immensely. Land sharks and even government agencies will turn the whole area into a concrete mess, killing the river for one final time,”
Development in a flood zone will simply make future floods worse. Too many homes and businesses will be vulnerable, since they are situated directly in the river’s flood plain. But not only that, since the floodplains have been taken away (concreted over) the flood water will have nowhere else to go other than further afield, into neighbouring communities that were once free of flood risk.
Sources: The Hindustan Times; Photo credit
