Chennai's water crisis once again exposes the city's climate vulnerability

With Chennai facing a severe drought this summer, it once again emphasises the importance of the waterbodies in the city. MORE ... 

Rivers, waterfront and public spaces

Waal is a mighty river. It gets its water all the way from Switzerland, through the industrial heartland of Germany. As the river Rhine crosses from Germany to the Netherlands, it breaks into two. The bigger and broader one is called Waal, as it passes Nijmegen, the city in the Dutch side of the border and more than 100 km later joins the North Sea.

River Waal takes a turn at Nijmegen. It also faces a constriction. Mighty rivers do not like bottlenecks. Thus at the point the river used to flood frequently. The Dutch Government and the city of Nijmegen decided to make more room for the room for the river. They dug a parallel channel on the inner side of the curve.

The new channel parallel to River Waal has public spaces built along its banks.

This was not easy though. The difficulty was not a technical one for the Dutch who had otherwise mastered the art of flood control and built a network of dykes, but to get social acceptability for the project. Andrea Voskens, who was the stakeholder manager for the project since its inception, says that with different people having different interests it took six years for the project to materialise from the drawing board.

Swimming in River Waal.

Interestingly, the people of Nijmegen also found uses for the river front system that the project had not planned for. They use the bridge for diving into the river, avoiding the lounge chairs that were specially designed for them to soak the sun.

Closer home in Chennai, the story of a river flooding because of its sides being hemmed in is not a new one. When from November 8 to December 4, 2015, rains came in five heavy bouts, the Adayar river could take no more. It flooded deep into the city. However, what had constricted the Adayar was unplanned development and not a natural cause.

Unlike in the case with Waal, the Adayar flood had happened because the people of Chennai had systematically turned their back to the river, rather than face it and live with it. How the water of a river or lake, and the waterfront is built into public spaces is an important first step in its conservation. When people of a city look at the river and spend time on its banks, they build links to it. When they turn their back to it, the river becomes a drain.

This statement is more or less true, but not universally so. Ganga is deeply ingrained in the Indian consciousness and lives, but still remains polluted. But the point here is that there have at least been Ganga action plans (though in the recent case it has been more on rhetoric and less on action). 

Yamuna, interestingly, though equally mentioned in social history, did not evoke much interaction. As a result, Delhi had turned Yamuna into a drain long ago. In Chennai, there have been many plans in the past to clean the Adayar and Cooum rivers. They have mostly been engineering exercises that had a minimum impact.

Not very far away from Chennai city, the Palar river goes deeper into people’s consciousness. It is even so today, when Palar is dry most parts of the year, and carries water only when it rains. Possibly, one time in history, Palar had a far more copious flow than it has today, and people’s lives were intertwined with its water. The Pallava empire, which flourished between the Sixth and the Ninth Century AD, would have drawn its sustenance from its copious flow. Otherwise Kancheepuram would not have grown into a city of such historical importance that there was no visitor, in the halcyon days of the empire, who did not pass the region without visiting the city.

Chennai, on the other hand, grew along the sea. The British part of the present-day city started in 1639 as a trading and military-administrative enclave. The colonial inhabitation was in and around Fort St. George. The Indian villages were in different parts, but with no special preference for the rivers. They were happy with their proximity to the local lakes, and also the sea.

This preference is seen even today – the only two important public spaces relating to water are the Marina and Elliots beaches. In fact, these two beaches are among the only public spaces that the city has today. The scarcity and people’s yearning for public spaces is so severe in Chennai that when the government-owned Aavin started a few ice cream parlours with small parks around, the local residents rush to these spots in the evening to catch the breeze.

Lakes and the other enclosed water bodies, however, disappeared from the public consciousness, and gradually got built over. Thus the end-2015 flood was as much along the non-existent lakes as along the rivers.

The rivers also were not perennial, coming from drier hills and supported by small catchments. After the reservoirs were built upstream to tap the river water for supply to the city, they dried even before they entered the city. When the ungrateful city turned their backs to the Adayar and Cooum, they became drains.

Chennai has to turn its face to the Adayar and Cooum rivers, for them to come back to life. It is not enough to have technological solutions to deal with their pollution. Yes, those interventions are necessary. But they by themselves cannot give sustainability to river restoration. Just as how the residents of Surat realised the importance of keeping their city clean after the Plague epidemic, Adayar and Cooum will come back to life only when Chennai residents find resonance with them.

It is here that the importance of public spaces comes in. When public spaces are designed and built along the rivers, people will interact with them. Art installations, museums, parks, street food and recreation bring people to the waterfront. They slow down and appreciate the sights, sounds, smells and the breeze on the face. They will have a stake in keeping the river clean.

In Hamburg there is a museum that commemorates the history of the city’s water supply and waste disposal systems. Set under an old water tower, it tells the story of how lives of the people in the second biggest German city changed when water started coming into people’s households. A well-curated museum can change people’s understanding; also perspective.

A river can soothe the jackboot rhythm. Militarism can also disturb a river. Thus, during the Cold War years, Spree flowing through Berlin did not have people turning their face to it. It was too close to the Berlin Wall, and the emotion it evoked was of trauma and fear. It is said that before World War II, this very river had many public swimming pools on its banks.

River Spree flowing through Berlin.

As an aspiring, young and impatient India grows, its public spaces are getting co-opted for development projects. Even the spaces that remain are losing their public nature, with restrictions being put on what they can be used for. There are less real meetings between individuals and more virtual meetings on social media.

When aspirations are not met – partially or wholly – there is frustration, anger and violence. In public spaces along water bodies, these negative energies can be dissipated constructively. Nuance will return to our understanding and articulation. Even an impatient nation needs time and space to contemplate.

[The idea for this story fermented during discussions with a group of experts during walks along the banks of the Waal, Emscher, Elbe and Spree rivers. In July we were part of an Indo-German visitors’ programme.]

Amaravati site floods thrice a year

Amaravati, the new capital city being planned for Andhra Pradesh, is at a site which alternates between floods and dry season. In this it shares the characteristics which Chennai, which went through devastating floods recently. The difference, however, is that the Krishna is a larger river when compared to the Adayar. MORE ...

Chennai floods: Need to take the 2015 lesson into the coming years

Murugan cleans my car in the mornings, and also that of many others in my apartments. I see him only on Saturdays, when he collects the key for cleaning the inside of my car. When the big floods came early this December, Murugan did not report to work for many days. That was not unusual, because many in Chennai could not travel to work during those deluged days.

He appeared more than a week later. Like everybody else in Chennai, he also had a story to tell. On Wednesday, 2 December morning at 3 a.m. his cot felt wet. He woke up to rising waters in his room. He came out without having time to collect any of his belongings. He sent his wife and four-year old child to her village by bus, and stayed in a rescue centre for the remaining days of the week.

When he recalled how the water from the Chembarambakkam reservoir flowing through the Adayar river took away his belongings, he repeated about losing his supply of rice, dal and salt, underlining how the water swept away even the most basic of his needs.

The New Year eve is muted in Chennai because of the floods

The November-December Chennai flood was in some way a great leveller. Usually in cities it is the poor and marginal that occupy the most marginal lands. And this usually happens in the banks of neglected waterways. The banks of Adayar river, which flooded with rain water and also the water from Chembarambakam reservoir is both a priced real estate and marginal land at the same time. 

If Murugan rented a room near Adayar river because of lower rents, the floodplains of the river also houses the richest and most powerful in the city. The picture that went viral on social media was of a leading industrialist being rescued from his Kotturpuram estate in a boat. Also, among those affected badly were senior government officials living in Manapakkam.

At least this made the disaster an inclusive one. Needless to say there was certain subaltern glee in the comments that followed the social media pictures of elderly industrialist and his wife in a fishing boat, or of the private jets that dashed against structures in the flooded airport. But more important, there was the consolation that the floods did not spare anybody, rich or poor.

This is of great importance at a practical level. Everybody in Chennai had felt the pain in some way or the other, and in that sense has a responsibility to ensure that this does not happen again.

The theme that keeps returning in all conversations in post-flood Chennai is fact that the Adayar river rose almost without any warning. It was not as if a cloudburst or a dam breach that caused the deluge in the river, but heavy rains from a low pressure condition which the residents of the city were aware of days in advance. And it was also not as if this was an isolated event. There had been copious rains from the first week of November, with very heavy showers in middle and later part of the month, and the reservoirs were getting filled to the brim. If excess water was released through the river in the interim period between the two events then the deluge and the cost to life and property could have been avoided.

Nature contributed the rains, but human decisions caused the deluge. There were three weather events back-to-back in November-December. They were not caused by climate change, and were caused by a combination of the El Nino effect and an Indian Ocean-specific movement of warmer currents towards the eastern coast of Tamil Nadu. This kind of event has happened before, and will happen again in future.

The linkage to climate change comes with the prognosis that there can be more such events in the future. The Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that there could be more extreme weather events in the future. The Tamil Nadu State Action Plan on Climate Change, on the other hand, predicts that though the number of cyclones may not increase they would increase in their intensity.

For those who went through the Chennai floods the linkage with climate change does not matter. For them the reality was that the water rose quickly, without warning, and in it they lost all their earnings and belongings. Some lost their family members to the rising waters. The insult to injury was when the administration opened the sluice gates of the reservoirs upstream of the city without adequate warning.

Weeks after the floods, the city is getting back to business as usual. A rather unusual advertisement was on the front page of newspapers a couple of days ago. A builder was making a mountain out of the molehill fact that his proposed apartments stood on ground that did not flood during the rains. We know how to make money out of every situation.

The city newspapers carry reports on the ongoing music festival. Even while we lose ourselves in the soulfully divine music of the Margazhi season, let us remember of the tens of thousands like Murugan for whom life changed that morning in early December. Move on we must, for that is what life is about, but let us at least ensure that we don’t walk into the same situation again.

Margazhi, Pongal and Deepavali, there will be enough reasons for us to celebrate. But let us not forget the lessons that this year’s rains taught us. If we do not put systems in place to ensure that what happened does not happen again, then we haven’t learnt from our lessons.

Let us not mistake our ability to cope with the floods as our resilience. That will be a costly mistake. We coped because we had to. Our lives, our livelihood is somehow linked to this city, and hence we coped. But building resilience is not about us as an individual or a community. It is about systems, protocols, delegation of authority and accountability. It is about being prepared, for the waters may rise again – when we have just about forgotten 2015.

Acceptance is the first step. Let us accept that we live in a flat, flood-prone city. Let us accept that we have not thought through our cleanliness and hygiene. Let us accept that we forget about our wastes as soon as we dump it in the bins, or around it, not realising that this itself comes back to cause diseases after the rains stop. Let us accept that we have messed up our tanks, lakes and marshlands, which could have otherwise served us as water balancing structures during heavy rains.

Let us also accept that we did not have a system to deal with the situation such as what happened a few weeks ago. And we never demanded that such a situation be put in place. Worse, if even after having lived through the floods we continue to avoid demanding for it, then let us accept that we are not willing to learn our lessons.

It will be a sufficient achievement if 2015 made us acknowledge and accept these inadequacies. When we hang new calendars on our flood-stained walls tomorrow, we can start with the process of ensuring that this does not happen again. Rains came in the past, and will come in the future. But at least we should avoid the impact of man-made consequences.

Heaviest rains in past 100 years drowns Chennai - again

If the runway of an airport is built over a dry river, there is a chance that the river may overflow its banks and flood the airport in a once in a lifetime event. This is what happened in Chennai in the early-December rains, when the impact of the downpour was multiplied by the water being let out from the reservoirs through the rivers in the city. MORE ...