Response Plan For Flood In Mumbai: Stakeholders, Challenges, And Outcomes

Background

Question:

You are the head of the Emergency Response Team in Mumbai. What would your response plan be given the situation and the location of this disaster event?

Flood is one of the types of natural disasters that cause many to suffer through different means such as by causing casualties, lost of houses, economic disruption etc. Despite the fact that it causes casualties, it receives an equally incompetent recovery operations. Additionally, the affected region do not have adequate response plan to minimize the expected losses (Pearson, 2012). The current study is a hypothetical coverage of a response plan, which will be required to the people living close to the heavily affected areas in Mumbai due to heavy rainfall. It has been shown in the hypothetical scenario that the areas close to the different rivers are expected to be affected because of an unexpected flood. The rainfall is very high in the month of July, which is why the rain water is running off to the different rivers. This is helping the rivers to overflow. Situations are favorable to flood (Tarlock, 2012). This is why the study will focus on preparing a response plan to an expected flood in Mumbai in the areas around the islands.  

In the proposed response plan, there will be the needs of different stakeholders. Following are the list of different stakeholders needed for the proposed response plan:

Local government- The local government needs to have some plans that could efficiently respond to the expected flood in Mumbai with effective preventive measures. However, the local government has yet to get success in controlling the losses. They are an important body in this response plan. It is of utmost necessity to have a modified and effective fighting strategy against the rising cases of floods. The local government should come up with a plan such as acknowledging the people who are close to danger areas. Acknowledgement can be done through various ways such as through daily news in different news channels across the country, in daily newspapers across the city and through radio transmission. There can be many other resources like such. Such resources can be helpful in creating awareness into the local people of Mumbai. However, there is a requirement from both the central government and in specific the state government to instruct the adherence to the thought solutions. It is their responsibilities to ensure that every thought strategies are appropriately placed and managed (Berke et al., 2014).

List of Different Stakeholders for Proposed Response Plan

NGOs- It is required to have a coordinating work in between the local government and the different NGOs across the city. The local government initiatives will be helped by the different resources available in the different NGOs. They can help in reaching to people living in the danger areas. This will help in communicating with such people. Nevertheless, this will educate the old people those who are leaving in the danger zone on the expected flood. An educated local resident is very handful in responding to an unexpected natural disaster (Chan, 2015).

Volunteers- Volunteers have also significant roles in such response plan. Volunteers are appointed to provide the relief works to the affected people and area. They do so with the help of different transporting means such as by helicopters and boats. They are helpful in supplying the required goods to the victims. Moreover, they are also helpful in the response plan as they will be effective in moving the residents to some safer place if it is required. This is always safe to vacant the places that are close to the rivers. According to the scenario given, places near to the different rivers will be prone to many losses (McDougall, 2012).

Private sectors- Private sectors can also play a very significant role in supporting the response plan against the expected flood in Mumbai. This can be understood from the examples of IBM. They have deployed Sahana Software that will help the government track the affected people in the different affected regions. Additionally, the company has brought an app named “Disaster Reporter”. This app will help the citizens to address their issues through this app. They will also be able to upload the images of affected areas, which might be helpful in getting a quick concern of the state government of Mumbai (Wan et al., 2014). Additionally, private sectors can also support the response plan or the after flood recovery plan with some necessary donations, which is highly needed in such situations. India is full of reputed private firms such as Reliance industries, Tata Group, Birla Group and many other companies like such. Their participation in the post flood recovery plan will provide utmost supports to the affected people. Moreover, different celebrities from any background can also take part in supporting the affected people (Johnson et al., 2013).

This is another very important and challenging section of this response plan for the expected flood in Mumbai. This is the one medium that not only helps the foods and other required materials reach to the affected people but this also help in transferring the affected people to a safer place. There are needs to supply the required goods such as foods to the affected people (Bozorgi-Amiri, Jabalameli & Al-e-Hashem, 2013). Nevertheless, this is challenging to supply required goods to the affected areas. In case of flood as mentioned in the hypothetical scenario, it is necessary to have some different transport means that could establish its access with the affected areas. In the mentioned context, there are different means of transport that can be really handful in supplying the required needs to the affected areas. Such transport means will be the boats and the helicopters. The volunteers may take care of the relief work by being in the different boats and reaching to the affected areas. Army people can use helicopters to supply the foods and other essential yet feasible goods to the affected people especially to those who are still not rescued to a safer zone (Peres et al., 2012).

Challenges in Implementation of the Response Plan

Additionally, the role of state government will be very handful in this cause. They will stock the different goods for the affected people. The arrangement of mentioned transport means will only be possible if the state government provides necessary funds to the operation. Moreover, the role of state government will be highly needed in such cause (Joshi & Aoki, 2014).  

Three factors have been identified as probable reasons behind the frequent flood in Mumbai. Those three factors are hydrological, meteorological and human (Eldho & Jothiprakash, 2012). Meteorological and hydrological can never be blamed for the destruction as they can only use technology to check the different parameters and forecast accordingly. The expected temperature can only be forecasted; however, forecasts are bound to prove a failure. On a similar note, the hydrological department can only predict the expected rise in level of water. They can never prevent the water to rise from above the normal level. The third factor Human is the only factor that scripts the real destruction (Ramkrishna & Chaudhari Pravin, 2014). The stored water or any wastage in the city passes through drains, canals and underground drains and enters into the Mithi River, which acts as a divider in between the city and the other suburbs. The river has collected many residual in the form of wastages such as plastics. The channels are comparatively lower in area, which is why it has become densely populated with such wastages. Until and unless it is widened, this will be difficult to think of preventing floods in Mumbai. For this, the state government as well as the local citizens is responsible. The state government is responsible because they have not been successful in dislodging the pollutant particles from the Mithi River. Common people are responsible because they are not caring before throwing wastages such as plastics. It is there carelessness, which is becoming the reason behind the rising culmination of wastages in the river (Singare, 2012).

Various challenges are there in implementing the response plan and also in providing the relief services to the affected people. Communication will be a challenge in flood recovery plan. Visible places get submerged because of flood waters. Hence, this is not feasible to access such places easily. In such situations, the administration is left with limited means of transportation. Specifically, running boats in the river and flying helicopters in the air are the two most feasible ways of accessing such places. Supplying adequate goods will be the next challenge. The limited accessibility hampers an appropriate supply of goods to the affected people. Additionally, flying helicopters in the air cost a good sum of amount. This means there will be added burden on the financial capability of the state government. This creates the necessity to have adequate funding. For such purpose, the state government will need the support of different private companies to collect the required funding. This is challenging because the cooperative works of the different private companies is never guaranteed. Tracking the affected people is the other challenge. There is a need to have an improved technology to get information on the affected people. IBM had taken such steps to provide support to the local government through Sahana Software; however, it is still challenging. Such software is very rare in practice (Sayers et al., 2013).

Probable Outcomes of the Response Plan for the Hypothetical Flood Scenario

The probable outcomes of the response plan for the hypothetical flood scenario can be many provided if it is followed heartedly. If Mithi River is cleaned then this will enhance the capability of the drainage system. Hence, this will improve a better drainage of rain water and thereby will reduce the running off water into the river. If communication is managed properly then this will help the rescue team reach to the affected people. Hence, they will get the required help. This will also reduce the casualties. If all the stakeholders perform up to their expected level then this will not only provide relief to the affected people but this will also reduce the burden from the state government of Mumbai. If technology is used to enhance the tracking of affected people then this will improve the relief work. This will also provide relief to the state government (Papathanasiou, Makropoulos & Mimikou, 2013). They are tested during such times. Additionally, flood in Mumbai is a very frequent phenomenon. There is a need of a technology to enhance the relief capabilities of both the local government and the different other stakeholders. If the drainage system is efficient then even if it is there a heavy rainfall, this will not create issues to the administration and to the local public also. There is a need to make people aware of the probable disasters that might be there in their places. If they are communicated properly either through news channels or the newspapers, they might get significant time to make better arrangements for them (Hoggart et al., 2014).

The response plan against the hypothetical situation of flood in Mumbai has thrown lights on many facts such as the challenges of relief works during such times. There is a challenge to communicate with the affected people. There is a challenge to access the affected region. Despite the mentioned and the several other challenges it can be answered with effective remedial actions. However, it requires a huge support of the local state government. It also requires the supports of different stakeholders such as the NGOs and the volunteers. Above all those, there is a need of sufficient funds, which will be required to clean the Mithi River. Funds will also be required to supply goods to the affected region through different transporting means such as helicopters. There is a necessity to put strict obligations on the local citizens for not throwing their wastages casually. However, this is challenging because it requires a repairing in a wider area.

The one recommendation to be protected from the frequent floods in Mumbai will be to clean the Mithi River on a regular basis. They should also widen the area of the river. This will help the drainage system to improve further. Nevertheless, poor drainage system is the one vital cause behind the frequent floods in Mumbai.

References

Berke, P., Cooper, J., Aminto, M., Grabich, S., & Horney, J. (2014). Adaptive planning for disaster recovery and resiliency: an evaluation of 87 local recovery plans in eight states. Journal of the American Planning Association, 80(4), 310-323.

Bozorgi-Amiri, A., Jabalameli, M. S., & Al-e-Hashem, S. M. (2013). A multi-objective robust stochastic programming model for disaster relief logistics under uncertainty. OR spectrum, 35(4), 905-933.

Chan, N. W. (2015). Impacts of disasters and disaster risk management in malaysia: The case of floods. In Resilience and Recovery in Asian Disasters (pp. 239-265). Springer Japan.

Eldho, T. I., & Jothiprakash, V. (2012). Study of spatio-temporal varaitions of rainfall pattern in Mumbai city, India. Journal of Environmental Research And Development Vol, 6(3).

Hoggart, S. P. G., Hanley, M. E., Parker, D. J., Simmonds, D. J., Bilton, D. T., Filipova-Marinova, M., … & Trifonova, E. (2014). The consequences of doing nothing: the effects of seawater flooding on coastal zones. Coastal Engineering, 87, 169-182.

Johnson, C., Bosher, L., Adekalan, I., Jabeen, H., Kataria, S., Wijitbusaba, A., … & Arefian, F. (2013). Private sector investment decisions in building and construction: increasing, managing and transferring risks. A background paper produced by development planning unit (DPU). University College London, for the United Nations National Strategy on Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), Global Assessment Report for Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR13). Prepared for Bina Desai and Andrew Maskrey.

Joshi, A., & Aoki, M. (2014). The role of social capital and public policy in disaster recovery: A case study of Tamil Nadu State, India. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 7, 100-108.

McDougall, K. (2012). An assessment of the contribution of volunteered geographic information during recent natural disasters.

Papathanasiou, C., Makropoulos, C., & Mimikou, M. (2013, June). An innovative approach to floods and fire risk assessment and management: The flire project. In Proc. 8th International Conference of EWRA” Water Resources Management in an Interdisciplinary and Changing Context”, 26th-29th June.

Pearson, L. (2012). Early warning of disasters: Facts and figures. SciDev. Net, November, 21.

Peres, E. Q., Brito Jr, I., Leiras, A., & Yoshizaki, H. (2012). Humanitarian logistics and disaster relief research: trends, applications, and future research directions. In Proc. of the 4th International Conference on Information Systems, Logistics and Supply Chain (pp. 26-29).

Ramkrishna, S. S., & Chaudhari Pravin, S. (2014). Evaluation of Non-structural and Structural Flood Management Measures. Evaluation, 1(2).

Sayers, P., Yuanyuan, L., Galloway, G., Penning-Rowsell, E., Fuxin, S., Kang, W., … & Le Quesne, T. (2013). Flood risk management: A strategic approach.

Singare, P. U. (2012). Studies on accumulation of NBDSW in Mithi River of Mumbai. Asian Journal of Environment and Disaster Management, 4(3).

Tarlock, A. D. (2012). United States flood control policy: The incomplete transition from the illusion of total protection to risk management.

Wan, Z., Hong, Y., Khan, S., Gourley, J., Flamig, Z., Kirschbaum, D., & Tang, G. (2014). A cloud-based global flood disaster community cyber-infrastructure: Development and demonstration. Environmental modelling & software, 58, 86-94.