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Climate Resilient Strategy
of Surat City
T he concept of
cities in the 20th century largely ideated around what a city
should look like, how it should be arranged and how it should function.
There were several differing worldviews which ranged from Ebenezer
Howard’s Garden city, F.L. Wright’s Broadacre City to Le Corbusier’s
Radiant City, of which each looked at the city spatially and the
experience of city life on the city dweller.
However, rapid urbanisation coupled with
unsustainable urban planning have led to increasing incidences of urban
floods, urban heat island effects, air pollution etc. All this has
brought to the forefront the need for city governments and communities
to come together to build more ‘climate resilient’ cities. A case in
point is the city of Surat in Gujarat.
Surat is the 9th largest city in India with a total
population of 4.5 million (Census of India, 2011). Owing to its location
along the river Tapi, changing rainfall patterns, city limit extension,
high population density and immigrant population, Surat is vulnerable to
both climate change risks and health hazards. In the recent years (1998,
2004 and 2006) the city has been subjected to flooding due to emergency
discharges from the Ukai dam. Further the Surat plague that occurred in
1994 (which was declared an international public health emergency by the
government officials) took place due to a combination of factors that
included mis-management of the municipal solid waste as well as flooding
of the Tapi river.
Surat Climate Change Trust
A commendable effort towards addressing these issues
was the formation of the Surat Climate Change Trust (SCCT), which was
established under the Bombay Public Trust Act, 1950 1.
The SCCT is an ‘institutionalised’ multi-stakeholder collaboration (MSC)
in Surat which has diverse representatives, namely, the Surat Municipal
Corporation, local elected representatives, leading multidisciplinary
academic institutes such as Centre for Social Studies and Sardar
Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, individual technical
experts, Southern Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the State
Irrigation Department. The SCCT in the recent years has begun to play a
more proactive role, keeping in mind that multi-stakeholder
collaboration is key to successfully building a climate resilient city.
Two key initiatives under the SCCT have been the End-to-End Early
Warning System and the Urban Health and Climate Resilience Centre (UHCRC).
End-to-End Early Warning System (EWS)
A meteorological, hydrological and reservoir
modelling system has been developed to forecast reservoir levels and
improve reservoir operations for floor risk mitigation 2.
It has been set up to warn the city administration to take action in the
event of extreme precipitation. This system addresses the issue of
flooding in a multi-scalar and multi-institutional manner. This includes
monitoring of upstream causes of flooding beyond the city limits, as
well capacity building of city administration, institutions, businesses
and civil society for planning, preparedness and management before and
during flood emergencies. In addition, Disaster Preparedness Plans are
prepared every year before the monsoons with stakeholder consultations
both at the overall city level and ward level. Thus the EWS combines
‘soft’ institutional coordination mechanisms with technical tools to
ensure improved decision-making processes and the ability to warn of
possible flooding up to four days in advance.
Urban Health and Climate Resilience Centre (UHCRC)
The UHCRC is one of its kind dedicated research
centre which works on urban health and building climate resilience. The
centre aims to work with city authorities to study the impacts of
climate change on health, with a special focus on the poor and
vulnerable communities. It further conducts disease surveillance along
with awareness generation and training to improve the city’s resilience
to outbreaks of diseases that may occur as a consequence of calamities,
such as floods.
Thus through this case study it can be inferred that
while city governments need to perform well in providing basic services
to its residents, they also need to be proactive in seeking partners and
building multi-stakeholder collaborations for building of climate
resilient cities. q
Endnotes
1 (Ghanekar,
Jariwala, Selvakumar, & Desai, 2015)
2 (Bhat, Karanth,
Dashora, & Rajasekar, 2013)
References
•
Census of India, 2011
•
Bhat, G. K., Karanth, A., Dashora, L., &
Rajasekar, U. (2013). Addressing flooding in the city of Surat beyond
its boundaries. Environment and Urbanization, 25(2), 429-441.
•
Ghanekar, A., Jariwala, P., Selvakumar, S.,
& Desai, V. (2015). Enablers of multi-stakeholder collaborations that
facilitate urban climate change resilience: Experience from Surat,
India. Tenth Annual International Conference on Public Policy and
Management, (pp. 1-15). IIM Bangalore.
Pratibha Ruth Caleb
pcaleb@devalt.org
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