Urban Vulnerability Assessment Report

Urban Vulnerability Assessment Report Panaji City, India Urban Vulnerability Assessment: Panaji City, India Authors: Sunandan Tiwari, Snigdha Garg & Meesha Tandon ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, South Asia Ground Floor, NSIC Bhavan, STP Building, Okhla Industrial Estate New Delhi 110 020 INDIA [email protected] www.iclei.org/sa March 2013 Urban Vulnerability Assessment Table of Contents 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 5 1.1 About the Urban Vulnerability Assessment project ............................................... 5 2. Methodology & Approach ................................................................................................ 7 3. City Profile ....................................................................................................................... 11 4. Stakeholder Mapping & Engagement ........................................................................... 12 5. Climate Scenario.............................................................................................................. 14 5.1 Past climatic data .................................................................................................. 14 5.2 Future Climatic Projections .................................................................................. 15 6. Vulnerability Assessment of the city .............................................................................. 17 6.1 Identifying key vulnerabilities .............................................................................. 18 6.3 Vulnerable Areas .................................................................................................. 26 6.4 Identification of key actors ................................................................................... 29 7. Resilience Interventions .................................................................................................. 33 8. Conclusions ...................................................................................................................... 36 9. Next Steps ......................................................................................................................... 36 References .............................................................................................................................. 39 Annex 1: Stakeholder Matrix ...................................................................................................... 40 Annex 2: Risk Assessment ........................................................................................................... 41 Annex 3: Analysis of Vulnerable Areas & Urban Actors ......................................................... 43 Annex 4: List of Participants at the SLD ................................................................................... 45 List of Tables Table 1: General Information on Panaji ....................................................................................... 11 Table 2: Stakeholder mapping for Panaji city .............................................................................. 13 Table 3: Risk assessment results before discussion ..................................................................... 25 Table 4: Risk assessment results after discussion ........................................................................ 26 Table 5: Actors analysis ............................................................................................................... 30 Table 6: Resilience Interventions ................................................................................................. 33 3 Urban Vulnerability Assessment List of Figures Figure 1: ICLEI’s UVA Process .................................................................................................. 8 Figure 2: Map of Panaji .............................................................................................................. 11 Figure 3: Trends in variation of temperature and rainfall in Panaji (1964-2000) ..................... 14 Figure 4: Percentage of GDP at Risk in the Panaji area due to 1m Sea-level Rise (Source: http://cigrasp.pik-potsdam.de/worldmap) ................................................................... 16 Figure 5: Number of people at Risk of migration in the Panaji area due to 1m Sea-level Rise (Source: http://cigrasp.pik-potsdam.de/worldmap) ..................................................... 16 Figure 6: Potential land loss (in ha.) in the Panaji area due to 1m Sea-level Rise (Source: http://cigrasp.pik-potsdam.de/worldmap) ................................................................... 16 Figure 7: Seven key zones of Panaji........................................................................................... 18 Figure 8: Map showing Salt Water Intrusion ............................................................................. 19 Figure 9: Google earth image showing the beaches near St. Inez in 2003 ................................. 20 Figure 10: Google earth image showing the beaches near St. Inez in 2010 ................................. 20 Figure 11: Depth to Ground Water, North Goa District, Ground Water Information Booklet .... 22 Figure 11: Map showing areas vulnerable to salt water intrusion, Beach formation, Loss of mangroves and land reclamation ................................................................................ 27 Figure 12: Map showing areas vulnerable to loss of sand dunes, lack of sewerage network and siltation of storm water drains ..................................................................................... 27 Figure 13: Map showing areas vulnerable to health issues, contamination of river water, and reclamation of area of Mala Lake ............................................................................... 28 Figure 14: Vulnerability Hotspots ................................................................................................ 28 Figure 15: Climate resilience building pathway ........................................................................... 37 4 Urban Vulnerability Assessment 1. Introduction Asia is arguably among the regions of the world most vulnerable to climate change. Climate change and climatic variability have impacted and will continue to impact all sectors, from national and economic security to human health, food production, infrastructure, water availability and ecosystems. The evidence of climate change in Asia is widespread: overall temperatures have risen from 1°C to 3°C over the last 100 years, precipitation patterns have changed, the number and intensity of extreme weather events is increasing, and sea levels are rising. Asia is also witnessing a relentless spread of human settlements in low lying, flood prone coastal zones against the growing risk of disasters related to climate change. It is in particular the urban poor living in hazardous areas, who are vulnerable to climate change impacts, with the most vulnerable being women, children and the elderly. Cities as centres of economic activities cater to half of the world’s population – and this share is growing. Not only as centers of growth but also as major consumers of resources, urban areas are one of the major emitters of greenhouse gases. On the other hand, these global emissions are leading to climate change and variability causing adverse impacts at the local level in terms of disruptions and damages to physical, social, economic, and environmental systems. Cities are therefore both the cause and the victims of climate change impacts. Local governments are responsible for the decisions and actions that determine the provisioning of services to its citizens. One of the most direct influences that local governments have on the poor is their provision of water, sanitation, drainage, solid waste collection, public health and housing construction and improvement. However, increasing demands of growing urban populations are stretching the limits of urban infrastructure and systems, and thereby the provisioning of these basic services with detrimental impacts on the well being local communities, especially the poor. Further, climate change impacts such as higher frequency and intensity precipitation, floods, drought or heat stress can disrupt the infrastructure and systems in place for ensuring the provision of such services or even make them dysfunctional. For example, unexpected heat stresses can take unprepared citizens by surprise and overwhelm public health systems. Similarly, floods can substantially damage the infrastructure of cities and disrupt the provision of basic services such as freshwater, thereby triggering increased morbidity in several cases. These climate events therefore increase the vulnerability of a city’s population especially that of low-income groups, the elderly, the sick and disabled, and children. To fully and effectively face these threats requires an improved understanding of the vulnerabilities to climate change – who or what is vulnerable to what and why. Important decisions with regard to resource allocation, infrastructural design, and systems for provisioning of services need to be made appropriately. 1.1 About the Urban Vulnerability Assessment project Relevance: According to a recent ICLEI – MIT survey conducted in 2011, the majority of local governments understand the need to undertake an urban vulnerability assessment but while many (39% of the surveyed

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