‘Growth of cities alongside rivers that have led to changes in land use and large scale encroachment increasing vulnerability of urban flood’
OUR BUREAU
GUWAHATI, Nov 17: To develop a roadmap for climate resilient flood magement in cities along Brahmaputra, a workshop was organized here today. As addressing flood risks entails a comprehensive multi-discipliry approach, a diverse group of stakeholders participated at the workshop. The workshop was an event planned under Climate Change Innovation Programme (CCIP), which aims at addressing the issue of urban flooding in the state.
CCIP is a partnership between Union Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change and the Department for Intertiol Development of UK.
The workshop on ‘Climate Resilient Flood Magement in Cities along Brahmaputra River’ was organised in collaboration with Assam State Disaster Magement Authority (ASDMA).
About 50 officials from Urban Development department, Water Resource department, Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC), Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA), Directorate of Town and Country Planning, project officers working with District Disaster Magement Authority, Civil Society Organizations, flood magement experts and with team members of CCIP Assam and ASDMA, attended the workshop.
Dipak Kumar Sarma, Commissioner & Secretary and CEO, ASDMA, spoke on the emerging concerns on the subject, highlighting, “the need of a comprehensive plan for flood magement in the urban centres of the State, to tackle the aggravated impacts of climate change induced weather anomalies”.
AK Johari, Additiol PCCF, Biodiversity & Climate Change, State Environment and Forest department said, “It is human interference that has aggravated the tural happenings in to disasters. While we are contributing to these disasters every day, it is imperative that we take appropriate steps to minimize the impacts”.
Rizwan Uz Zaman, Team Leader, Assam, CCIP-DFID said, “It is growth of towns and cities alongside rivers that have led to changes in land use and large scale encroachment in river flood plains, increasing vulnerability of urbanized areas to flooding”.
Further, PP Changkakati, Secretary, State Water Resource department emphasized on ‘the need of a coordited effort between all stakeholder departments to identify the relevant issues related to water resources and urban flood, while designing the comprehensive plan, to make it resilient enough’.
Vidya Soundarajan, India Programme Mager, CCIP briefly described CCIP interventions for Assam and India, focusing on how integration of climate change with the planned interventions is crucial for achieving desired outcomes.
She stated, “CCIP’s interventions will lead to development of action plans, which will be implemented through scalable pilots that can be replicated later across the states.”
During the technical session, ndita Hazarika, Joint Secretary & State Project Officer of ASDMA presented on the challenges, issues of Guwahati flooding and shared the findings of the ASDMA-Columbia University project.
She also steered the discussion session of the workshop to identify various issues relevant to different cities and towns of the state.
The workshop is a part of CCIP activity on climate resilient flood magement in vulnerable cities, where the programme will extend technical support to ASDMA in planning climate informed future actions.
The actions will be targeted at delivering localised benefits to the affected population living in cities along the river Brahmaputra, as well as a much wider group by scaling-up and mainstreaming policy innovations, to build climate resilience.
It was agreed that the action plan will be planned in such a way that it informs project designs and detailed project reports for development projects in the State.