Mumbai needs to adopt a long-term approach in its plans to combat the challenges posed by climate change, opined experts during a panel discussion held on Wednesday. Organised by Mumbai First, the discussion sought to identify how Mumbai can adopt the water management strategies from the Netherlands, a low-lying country which is famous for its spatial planning and measures to mitigate rising sea levels. According to Bart De Jong, consul general of Netherlands, 26 per cent of the Netherlands lies below the sea level including major cities like The Hague and its capital Amsterdam, making 60 per cent of the country's land flood-prone. During the event, he said that while the Netherlands had deployed traditional flood defences like dams since 1,000 AD, the country was nudged into adapting a shift in paradigm after the devastating floods in 1995 and 1997. Since then, an array of strategies including Delta Works, Room for the River, urban flood plains among others have been implemented in the Netherlands. Pointing to the different problems and topographies of the two countries, however, senior government officials from Maharashtra concurred that Netherlands' strategies would be hard to replicate in Mumbai. According to P Velrasu, Divisional Commissioner, Konkan, a long term approach while planning in Mumbai is the need of the hour to ensure that the city is able to become more resilient in the likelihood of rising sea levels over the next few decades. Velrasu, who served as the AMC (Projects) in BMC said, "Mumbai's topography is its biggest problem. While the city's eastern side has mangroves and creeks, the western side is entirely exposed and most marginalised sections of the city live along the banks, making them the most vulnerable to climate change. To tackle the problem of flooding and rising sea levels, what the city really needs is a long term approach in planning to cater to it even 40-50 years from now, and which will work irrespective of any political changes." Meanwhile, Aman Mittal, Joint CEO of Maharashtra Institution for Transformation (MITRA) said the BMC is working on the GIS modelling, which will aid in long-term planning as per future extremities.
