Wake up now! Experts suggest remedial measures to reduce flooding

Experts have suggested several measures to reduce flooding in the city, which has become an all-too-common sight after each spell of rain.

They recommended removing blocks and re-establishing interconnectivity of lakes, protecting valley zones and buffer regions of the wetlands, besides urging civic authorities not to constrict or concretise natural drains.

“What we saw on Tuesday should be a wake-up call for the government. The state government cannot run away from its responsibility by allocating grants for projects (re-modelling of drains by building cement walls) that do not solve the problem,” Prof T V Ramachandra of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, said.

Pointing to the intensifying rainfall, Prof Ramachandra said: "Over 100 mm of rainfall is being recorded in just an hour, which was earlier spread over a month. This is going to be common.”

Srinivas Reddy, former director of Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Center (KSNDMC), urged the government to aggressively push for structural and non-structural measures to combat urban flooding.

“The run-off quotient in Bengaluru is more than 80% due to urbanisation and lack of ground for water percolation,” he said. He suggested measures like construction of recharge wells, rainwater-harvesting facilities (structural), land-use regulations, and flood forecasting (non-structural), etc.