Increasing population, rapid urbanization and extreme events have made cities around the world vulnerable to water related risks like floods, water scarcity, polluting water bodies and water stagnation. As cities keep increasing in number and size, urban dwellers feel the impacts of these changes the most. Such disasters uproot lives, cause loss of lives and damage city infrastructure. Being at the forefront of these shocks has driven cities to find innovative solutions to build resilience to these events, transforming their threats into opportunities to boost economic development, and protect and improve the well-being of communities, especially the most vulnerable, who are being disproportionately affected by these shocks. In this second session of the 2023 Cities on the Frontline Speaker Series, jointly organized by Resilient Cities Network and the World Bank, we invited India’s National Institute for Urban Affairs (NIUA) to co-host the “Building Water Resilience” session.

 

NIUA has worked on multiple initiatives on water related issues with cities and has also recently published a catalogue that compiles 30 global and local solutions targeted to support cities in choosing appropriate measures as they work to build flood resilience. To share more about their work, we will be joined by Dr. Victor R. Shinde, Head, C-Cube, NIUA’s Climate Center for Cities and Ms. Ishleen Kaur, Senior Environment Specialist, at NIUA. We will also be joined by representatives from cities in India who are working on implementing initiatives, Ms. Anjali P, Hazard Analyst from Kerala State Disaster Management Authority, Dr. Somenath Bhattacharyya, Environmental Geologist/ Senior Consultant from the city of Kolkata and Ms. Nisha Mani, Projects Manager, from The Nature Conservancy, Chennai, Tamil Nadu.