An interactive map that shows flood-prone areas in the Mumbai city. The map has been created based on flooding and water logging data observed in news and local sources based on Mumbai flooding incidences reported in 2005, 2015, 2017 and 2018. The red dots shows the major locations known for water logging and the pale blue polygons show the approximate extent of the water logging area based on news reporting or local knowledge.
Mumbai Overview
Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra state of India, is a densely populated city on the western coast of Indian peninsula. A cosmopolitan metropolis, earlier known as Bombay, Mumbai is also the largest city in India. Mumbai is undoubtedly the commercial capital of India and is one of the predominant port cities in the country. Mumbai's nature, as the most heterogeneous and multicultural Indian city, is symbolized in the presence of the Bollywood industry within the city, the center of the globally-influential Hindi film and TV industries. It is also home to India's largest slum population.Mumbai is called as an island city because of its nature of origin. It was originally a conglomeration of seven islands on the Konkan coastline, which over time were joined through land-fillings to form the island city of Greater Bombay. The city has an estimated metropolitan population of about 22.05 million in 2018, making it the 4th most populous city in the world and one of the populous urban regions in the world.
Mumbai is an efficient city in some ways, but this reputation depends on fair weather. It turns into a soggy mess with the arrival of a monsoon. This year (2018) the season has begun with the spectacular collapse of a pedestrian bridge on a crucial railway line in Andheri, causing injuries and overall urban paralysis. Not even a year has passed since the ghastly stampede on a foot over bridge at Elphinstone Road station, that took over 20 lives. The recurrent disasters involving infrastructure are proof of the indifference among policymakers to the city’s needs, even as they speak of a ‘global standard’ of living, which is highly questionable.
Mumbai Flooding Problems
Come monsoon season and Mumbai, the so called to be a global city, turns into an ugly gutter with flooding and water logging in many parts of the city, disrupting the normal life of the city to almost standstill position. There are some specific areas in the city which are highly prone to flooding and water logging; the first name that comes to this list is the Hindmata area. It’s like the epicenter of news when it rains heavily in Mumbai. Few hours of heavy rain and this place starts drowning. Apart from this places like Kurla, Sion, King Circle, Dadar, and Matunga are prone to severe flooding. Moving to the western part of the town, Juhu, Bandra, Mahim, Santacruz, and Kalina are areas where it rains a lot and these areas are also prone to fill in fast. These areas form the backbone of Mumbai, connecting the island city to its suburbs, or forming entry points to the suburbs. All these flooding and water logging cause public and private transport coming to a standstill, with loss of lives and properties.Although, it floods every monsoon, the civic body refuses to listen to residents’ claims, said activists. As somebody says, “Mumbai will flood, it will flood every monsoon…, and there is only one reason for that, that is, the people of Mumbai and also those who rules the city…” Obviously, the people of Mumbai are responsible because they throw all their waste garbage here and there, which flows in gutter and blocks all the sewage pipes which results in water logging, and hence cause flooding Mumbai City. Similarly, the civic body is also equally responsible for these floods because of their negligence behavior, lack of planning ability, incompetent planners and engineers, and top of all, a corruption-prone and unethical mindset of the people who are responsible for management of the Mumbai civic system.
