Urbanization, monsoon and poor drainage causing flash floods in Kathmandu

July 4, 2022
2 MIN READ
A
A+
A-

The rapid and unplanned urbanization of Kathmandu Valley has brought negative impacts to its overall development. However, the issues of drainage management have always been a major problem in Kathmandu along with other various urban areas of Nepal.

The urban growth rate of Kathmandu is nearly 6.5 percent every year, with one of the highest population densities in the world, which has resulted in congested and crowded roads, encroached rivulets, concretization of the city and road junctions becoming a garbage dumping site. Unplanned urbanization and the lack of sustainable infrastructure planning has led to Kathmandu experiencing regular flash floods in recent years.

“The drainage system of Kathmandu is severely mismanaged, and badly designed. With the rising population and urbanization, the drainage system is unable to take the pressure. Even if it rains lightly, roads and houses in Kathmandu get flooded nowadays. With the monsoon at its peak the situation is likely to get worse. Urbanization has occurred at a constant pace in Kathmandu for the last ten years yet the drainage system remains the same. Traditional drainage does not have the capacity to contain the increased level of water flow and thus flash floods have become a regular occurrence,” said Sanot Adhikari, environmentalist and chairperson of Youth Alliance for Environment (YAE), an NGO that is dedicated to establish the environmental issues in society and enhance the capacity of young researchers and environmental graduates.