Room For River Project

Problem

The news of Assam floods 2020 had been throughout the internet during these Corona times (though never broadcasted by the News Channels), well these floods took place even last year too and even before that... the difference is only that they grew worse. This frightening story which repeats itself every year has affected a total of 27 lakh and more people... not only humans but even animals too (Kaziranga National Park). 

One may always argue its a flood prone state...  The Brahmaputra river itself is unstable...  Assam receives river water flowing down from states like Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya. These rivers flowing down from neighboring states cause flash floods...  

Ya, you easily state the natural reasons, but then why is the situation worsening with every passing year???

Deforestation

Unplanned Growth 

Encroachment of the flood plains

See, when there is excess volume of water in a river it flows out over to flood plains.

Now some Builders have started building houses on these flood plains in the name of development.

Toh ye dekh ke kya lagta hai, ghar paani se he bharega na???

many environmentalists say that the engineering processes are conducted with little or no environmental assessment (EIA 2020...lol) like these fools have been doing illegal mining in the national park here... ignorant gov.

Climate Change 

Improper Construction of Embankments

The recent situation of the floods affected Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assam and some parts of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Kerala gets a Red Alert for extremely heavy rains. In Kerala, it is a very strange situation you see, for the previous few months there had almost been a situation of water crisis, and now extreme rainfalls have been predicted so much so that the floods may occur.

Embankment

The wall built on the edge of the river to direct it in a particular way and prevent the flooding of nearby areas. This is considered as the easiest way to prevent flooding.

So when does the problem arise??

Whenever you restrict the flow, the speed increases so as the level of water.

Sedimentation of river increases if the area of flow of river reduces. If not removed or maintained properly the level of the river continuously increases. Eventually the water will flow over the embankments or break through them. Now there is no use of these embankments...

The people who have built their houses besides these embankments get a false sense of security (Indian Gov. always sells it before the elections), thinking due to the embankment the river water wont change its course.

What they don't know is that before the river used to flow over a larger area so was the spread of its sedimentation, which is obvious to say the area used to get flooded since it is a flood plain.

Embankment breaching: When an embankment fails to stop the water. An embankment is only as strong as its weak point.

So to say, Half of maybe more than half of these embankments in Assam are in extremely vulnerable condition.

(The Contractors make a lot of money, since new embankments are made after every flood, there's this administrator-contractor nexus.)

So the moral of the story: thoughtlessly building and embankment only increases the chances of flooding.

Solution

In the recent Landscape lecture, Sandeep (faculty) coined this topic about Room for River Project... Hence I took it as my first blog topic... ha!...

Solution is hidden Netherlands... The Room for River Project

Netherlands, a nation whose one-third land is below sea level.

Focusing on river's natural environment and observe its flow and then construct the infrastructure, this should be the most important point on a designer's mind.

These are the basics points to be kept in mind before you build a god damn embankment and not just keep on building them in the name of development...

So after relocating the embankments further away they started growing trees along the flood plains in the area inside...this natural forestation further helped in flood protection.

They further lowered the flood plain level, which inturn provided more height for the river to flow.

Similarly they also lowered the river bed.

Removal of obstacles is also one such point, which promotes the free flow of river.

Creating a reservoir where there is a possibility of flooding so that if a flood occurs all the water can be collected in this area.

Hope the Indian Government can take inspiration from the Room for River Project, and implement it in India.(I think plans have started in Kerala...)