Mumbai Disaster Risk Management Master Plan

As a highly vulnerable city to major natural disasters, Mumbai has experienced several major extreme weather events within the past decade that have effectively brought the city to a standstill and caused severe human and economic losses. In response to the growing need for a contingency plan, the city of Mumbai drafted the Disaster Risk Management Master Plan that outlines the city's commitment to mitigating future risk and damages that could potentially result through future natural disasters.



Source: Shanghai Manual: A Guide for Sustainable Urban Development in the 21st Century (2010)

Building upon the 2005 Disaster Risk Management Plan (DRM,) Mumbai released an updated and more comprehensive disaster relief and emergency operations plan in 2010. Since the city of Mumbai is an extremely vulnerable city to major flooding events, the 2005 Disaster Relief Management plan focused largely on efforts related to flood control. In July of 2005, Mumbai experienced a massive flash flood that resulted in over 5,000 deaths and severe economic losses. In addition, the floods severely damaged basic municipal infrastructure and resulted in a widespread contamination of the city's water and food supplies, resulting in a significant human health crisis after the flood as well.



It was determined that three factors led to the scale of the disaster: an antiquated storm-water drainage system, uncontrolled and unplanned development in the northern suburbs, and the destruction of mangrove ecosystems. As a result, the 2005 DRM plan was designed to reduce the impact of future extreme weather events. Massive public works projects were established to help reduce the risk of the city to future floods and the consequences of such events. The plan also outlined steps to protect human health before, during and after these extreme weather events to help combat the spread of communicable diseases around the city. In addition, the plan also included the enhancement of advanced monitoring and warning systems that would alert Mumbai's population of nearly 13 million of impending disasters.