Abstract:
The world population is expected to reach 9.8 billion people by 2050 according to
UN. More than twice as many people will live in cities (6.7 billion) as in rural areas,
according to estimates (3.1 billion). Urban systems must be resilient enough to face
various challenges to make our cities more and more sustainable. Flooding is one
of the world's most experienced natural disasters. India is a climate-vulnerable
country that ranks high among countries at danger from climate change. In a
growing country like India, urban regions are major investment grounds,
accounting for 60% of the country's overall GDP. Any unplanned course of action
such as changing the vulnerable land use to build up like flood plains, wetlands
would aggravate the exposures during any kind of disaster. Urban areas that are
most susceptible to external shocks and stresses are those that have fragile
systems as well as large populations of the socially or economically marginalized.
Climate change, whose adverse effects threaten all nation’s capacity to achieve
sustainable development, is one of the biggest problems of our time, according to
the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The state has also suffered 31
flood events in 36 years, from 1975 to 2011.Smart city Bhubaneswar is also
growing rapidly nearly twice in two decades. The problem is this critical aspect of
climate resilience is missed in the master plan which can have further aggravated
outcomes soon in a disaster event and to add that Bhubaneswar has been
experiencing more frequent urban floods. Flood risk zones were created using
analytical spatial modelling in GIS to better understand floods and their
repercussions. These zones account for the locations where a flood hazard is
predicted to occur and reflect socioeconomic and infrastructural susceptibility.
Master plans along with land use land cover has been studied to find out vulnerable
areas with appropriate parameters from literature. Both physical and social
assessments are overlayed with weightage using AHP technique to produce risk
map. The risk map was compared with proposed master plan Bhubaneswar 2030
to create more resilient spatial plan by devise norms and adopting best practices
to handle urban systems better during a flooding event. By incorporating disaster
risk reduction techniques into the land use plan, the primary objective is to assure
urban growth that can coexist with nature
