India has world’s highest number of slum clusters in flood-prone areas

Flood activities are an important danger worldwide. According to 2024 Moody’s report, more than 2.3 billion people are exposed to floods each year. More than 600 million people in India are at risk of coastal or internal floods. However, especially in the global South, there is a comprehensive data lack of vulnerable communities about the risk of flood exposure.

A new study tried to close this gap by analyzing the satellite images of informal settlements or shanty houses in 129 low and medium -income countries and comparing them with 343 well -documented large -scale flood maps.

The study found that India has the highest number of slums in the vulnerable settlements of more than 158 million, more than 158 million than Russian population, and most of them concentrated in the natural flood delta of the Ganga River.

This type of largest concentrations and the largest number of South Asian countries; North India leads the absolute numbers, then Indonesia, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Other important ‘Hot Points’ are Rwanda and its neighborhood, the coastal areas of Northern Morocco and Rio de Janeiro.

In general, in the global South, 33% of the informal settlements in the 67,568 clusters of 908,077 households consist of approximately 445 million people living in 908,077 households, and are already in areas that are already exposed to floods. Although countries like India and Brazil have a large number of large floods, they have disproportionate flood beds.

Study, It was published NATURE CITIES In July, it emphasizes the lack of risk management strategies that give priority to vulnerable communities, including those who have already lived in floods.

Risk and Reconciliation

The researchers classified human settlements in rural, suburban and urbanized, and found that Latin America and the Caribbean were high urbanization (80%) and thus more than 60% of the settlements were in urban areas. In contrast, under the Sahara Africa had the lowest urbanization rates and approximately 63% of the informal settlements were rural. In Sierra Leone and Liberia, non -official settlements hosted most of the population.

In India, 40% of the slums residents in the urban and suburban regions during the study.

People settle in flood beds or forced to settle in flood beds due to a combination of factors such as access to jobs, social security and financial restrictions. In India and Bangladesh, the low liar Gangedic Delta and the major national population contribute to numbers.

The study also emphasized access to resources and therefore inequalities in local responses to floods. These vulnerable residents also benefit from the loss of work and access to services among the indirect consequences of floods.

It has been found that the fragility of the exposed population is dependent on socioeconomic factors such as education level and institutional factors such as flood insurance.

The authors of the study wrote that both slums and non -Slum residents lived in flood beds around the world for different reasons. In richer regions such as Europe, the flood insurance premiums in high -risk areas promote the desire of flood bed areas such as coast and water view.

Infrastructure is also available to protect people and homes, as well as taxes. However, in the global South, flood regions pushes low -income household people to more vulnerable areas by offering cheaper land and housing.

The data reveals that informal settlements have a significant prejudice to settle in flood beds, and that the residents of shanty residents are proved in cities such as Mumbai and Jakarta, as well as their settlement in a flood bed is 32% more than the outside due to lower costs. In fact, the higher the risk of floods, the higher the chances of settling there.

Bangaluru said, “In cities like Bengaluru, there is absolutely a very strong correlation between informal settlements and vulnerabilities against floods,” he said.

“It is not preferred by large builders for flood -prone places, gate communities or CT parks, so these areas are available because they are cheaper for immigrant workers and informal settlements.”

Non -official settlements in such urban areas are usually a tin pages, tents or linoleum residences and rent paid to the owners through land contractors (”TEKEDARLAR”).

SDG Death Date Releases

Researchers have stated that the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Agenda (SDGs) need to move on the risk of flood security for the poorer population as the last date of 2030. Eliminating poverty and hunger, taking advantage of clean water and sanitation, and taking climate action. They apply to all member states of the UN and focus on vulnerable communities.

The study also expressed the importance of taking a human -centered approach (instead of location -oriented) to improve insufficient infrastructure.

Data show large settlement concentrations in smaller areas showing gaps in housing, infrastructure and basic services. Often, even gate communities pusse flood -prone areas abstraction, vulnerable communities to higher risk areas due to unsuccessful infrastructure and lack of drainage.

“Real estate plays a major role in how these informal settlements emerged.”

Finally, the researchers also discussed the government’s need to cooperate with communities instead of traditional disaster. Skill improvement in areas such as sanitation, waste management and the establishment of drainage systems can be based not only on floods, but also on other risks such as infectious disease.

“This data -oriented insights emphasize the disproportionate exposure faced by the slums in the global south and emphasize that there is a need for fair and fair and fair Taşkın adaptation management ..

Findings are also a evidence of concept for analyzing satellite images that can process large amounts of data and to remove nuances such as socioeconomic data embedded in population densities. As a follow -up, the authors said that they plan to examine processes such as shanty expansion, climate change and human migration to effectively predict future flood risk.

Sandhya Ramesh is a free science journalist.