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Climate Change May Worsen Flooding in Mumbai and Chennai

Climate change may cause more disruptions than you can imagine. For all flood-prone cities of India, there is an urgent need to develop flood inundation maps.

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Climate Change and Mumbai Flooding

Climate change may worsen flooding in Mumbai and Chennai | Mumbai’s floods are becoming more frequent and result in large-scale disruption. | Photo courtesy: Dibakar Roy via Unsplash - https://tinyurl.com/bpa74z82 | Credits Unsplash Licence

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For all flood-prone cities of India, there is an urgent need to develop flood inundation maps.

Although Bollywood films are full of songs romancing the rains, the southwest monsoon brings massive disruption to the residents of Mumbai, which houses Bollywood.

Although the metropolis has been expanding at a fast pace, because of its coastal location and prevalence of creeks, it is prone to flooding during monsoon rains this time of the year. 

The city gets flooded almost every year. In the past decade, there have been four notable years for flooding in 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2023.

Mumbai’s floods result in large-scale disruption, crippling transport links and leading to loss of livelihood besides destroying infrastructure, property and causing massive injuries. 

While Mumbai suffers during the southwest monsoon, Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu state, on the southeast coast, is flooded during the northeast monsoons and cyclonic storms in November and December. 

Since the 2004 tsunami, there have been 14 cyclonic storms which have led to regular flooding in the area. Recent flood occurrences in Chennai are similar to that of Mumbai (2015, 2017, 2021 and 2023). This suggests that

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