Monsoon Meltdown | Why Guwahati must adapt before it’s too late

Community monitoring and smarter infrastructure can turn Guwahati’s flood response from reactive to proactive

Every year, Guwahati lives out a paradox. A city that sits on the banks of the Brahmaputra faces water scarcity in summer, only to be paralysed by flooding when the rains arrive. The clearest sign of this contradiction is in the transport sector. Buses stall, flights are delayed, and arterial roads transform into rivers. This annual collapse is a recurring crisis that undermines mobility, safety, and economic activities.

The traffic disruptions also take place, surprisingly, with a little rainfall. According to news reports, on July 22, just 7.2 millimetres of rain led to widespread waterlogging in neighbourhoods like Rukminigaon and Hatigaon, forcing schools to close and causing hours of delays for commuters. A little heavier downpour of 37 mm later in the same month submerged nearly half the city, grounding flights.

Residents of Rukminigaon were reported to be using rubber boats to ferry children to school when local streets turned into canals within 20 minutes of rainfall. Transport fallouts are immediate: on a single heavy-rain day, nearly half of Assam State Transport Corporation buses are forced to stop operating, worsening congestion, and leaving commuters stranded. Meanwhile, rail services in the Northeast remain under chronic threat: a 2023 study notes that flash floods, landslides, and related hazards frequently damage tracks and signalling systems in Assam, leading to extended service disruptions, and rising maintenance costs — with the Lumding–Badarpur hill section particularly vulnerable.

The meteorology does not fully explain this collapse. According to the Government of Assam, Guwahati receives around 1,600–1,700 millimetres of rainfall annually. What has intensified is the frequency of short, violent bursts — 70 to 80 millimetres within an hour — that overwhelm the city’s narrow drains. A study on the pollution and hydrology of the Bharalu River Basin notes that the peak discharge of the Bharalu is reported at approximately 35 cubic metres per second, a figure which exceeds the capacity of its narrow channel. Many feeder drains are less than half a metre wide.

Urban neglect has further deepened Guwahati’s flood crisis. In recognition of this, the Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) took the initiative to develop a ‘Sponge City Master Plan’ in 2022, aimed at integrating detention ponds, storage systems, and green infrastructure into urban planning. Four wetlands — Dipor Beel, Silsako, Borsola, and Sarusola — are recognised as natural flood buffers, yet these wetlands keep shrinking due to lack of effective action by enforcement agencies against encroachment. Additionally, the city’s hills have been cut indiscriminately for real estate, leading to heavy siltation of drains, further reducing their capacity.

The flood advisories in Assam remain largely meteorological. The Flood Early Warning System (FLEWS) issues circle-level alerts with rainfall predictions and potential flood hotspots, often with a lead time of 7-18 hours. But these alerts are designed primarily for district officials and disaster managers — not everyday commuters. They provide technical information on precipitation and river levels, but the ordinary commuters remain unaware which roads will be cut off, which bus routes suspended, or what detours are available for their daily or emergency commute.

This gap should be closed. Assam could build on existing systems by linking flood forecasts with real-time transport data from ASTC’s GPS-enabled buses, city traffic police feeds, and Guwahati Municipal Corporation’s drainage monitoring. Commuters could then receive area-specific alerts. Such advisories should be pushed through SMS, WhatsApp, FM radio, and digital display boards at bus stands to reach both smartphone users and those without access.

Second, public buses need rerouting protocols. The Assam State Transport Corporation could designate alternative ‘flood-safe routes’. A dynamic dashboard should show which depots are accessible, so that buses are reallocated before passengers are stranded.

Third, roads may be rebuilt and widened to provide more space for a multitude of transport modes — buses, cars, auto-rickshaws, motorbikes, cycles, etc., to ease the congestion. Assam’s Housing and Urban Affairs Department has proposed elevated ‘road-cum-drain’ projects to channelise water towards Silsako wetland. These projects may be prioritised for the worst-hit corridors as an integrated scheme — rather than rolled out in a piecemeal and selective manner. Drainage-integrated pavements and raised bus shelters should be standardised in all new projects.

Fourth, wetlands may be treated as a complement to the transport infrastructure for planning purposes in Guwahati. When Silsako and Deepor Beel are filled, the water that should have gone there instead flows on roads. Protecting and restoring these wetlands is as vital to seamless mobility as building flyovers.

Finally, community monitoring should be institutionalised. Ward-level committees could verify whether drains have been cleared after rainfall and feed this data back into the early warning system. Such monitoring would ensure that maintenance of drains does not remain only a seasonal activity but is carried on regularly.

The cost of inaction is rising. It is high time to initiate action, as the number of days of cloud bursts and intense rainfalls during a short period, causing heavy flooding in the city, and consequently, traffic disruptions are gradually increasing. Adaptability to changing times is a key to mitigating people’s sufferings.

Shreya Gupta is research associate, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.