The Exposure, Vulnerability, and Ability to Respond of Poor Households to Recurrent Floods in Mumbai

Abstract

This paper examines poor households in the city of Mumbai and their exposure, vulnerability, and ability to respond to recurrent floods. The paper discusses policy implications for future adaptive capacity, resilience, and poverty alleviation. The study focuses particularly on the poor households, which tend to have greater exposure and vulnerability to floods and limited ability to respond given the constraints on physical and financial resources. The study seeks to understand the implications of the fact that poor households are more likely than non-poor households to be located in flood-prone areas. The study used the land use maps for the selected flood-prone areas to determine the extent and spread of poor and non-poor households and other types of assets and activities in areas with chronic and localized flooding. Primary data were obtained through detailed household surveys to understand the vulnerability and impacts of the extreme floods of July 2005, recurrent floods and the ability of households to respond and cope. The study examined the option of relocation to flood-free areas and identified factors that influence families' decisions regarding relocation. The study finds that a significantly large proportion of poor households are located near areas with chronic and localized flooding. These households are either below the poverty line or have low incomes and reside in informal settlements or old and dilapidated structures. Future climate risks are likely to put greater burden on the poor and push them further into poverty unless well directed efforts are made to protect them.

A Normative Exploration of the Link Between Development, Economic Growth, and Natural Risk

“…Any undiscriminated action to reduce risk (or prevent risk generation) may be counter-productive. For instance, people in at-risk informal settlements in developing country cities settle there because they face a difficult trade-off between living in risky places with good access to jobs and services or to live in safe places without these opportunities (Patankar 2015). Risk reduction policies should not prevent poor people to access the opportunities cities can offer.…”

Disaster risk, climate change, and poverty: assessing the global exposure of poor people to floods and droughts

“…Households may be willing to accept high levels of risk to get access to opportunities. For example, in Mumbai, households in flood areas report that they are aware of the flood risks, but accept them due to the opportunities offered by the area, such as access to jobs, schools and health care facilities (Patankar, 2016). Compounding this incentive for people to reside in flood zones and close to opportunities is the reality that transport is often unreliable, unsafe, or expensive (Dudwick et al, 2011;Gentilini, 2015).…”

Poverty and climate change: introduction

“…Post-disaster transfers to higher income people were much larger than transfers to poorer individuals after the 2005 Mumbai floods (Patankar, 2015)) and terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355770X18000141 the 2011 Bangkok floods (Noy and Patel, 2014).…”