Catch me if you can; MSc thesis - Vita Rehberger

Catch me if you can Coexistence with the rising waters in urban environments of the Global South Case study, Mumbai Vita Rehberger

Master thesis, 2021 University of Copenhagen Landscape Architecture

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”

- Marie Curie, 1973

Catch me if you can

Coexistence with the rising waters in urban environments of the Global South Case study, Mumbai

30 ECTS Master Thesis Landscape Architecture, Urban Design University of Copenhagen - Faculty of Science Department of Geoscience & Natural Resource Management Section of Landscape Architecture & Planning Student:

Vita Rehberger

Submitted:

31st of May, 2021

Supervisor:

Ole Fryd

Abstract With the rise of climate change induced disasters, attention of academics and practitioners has been brought to resilient climate adaptation projects. Overlapping vulnerabilities in the city of Mumbai, India, are peaking on all aspects of urban life.

The city is at risk of being submerged in the sea by 2050, a threat putting lives of millions in danger and making permanent changes to its already collapsing ecology. This project explores the context of urban resilience in relation to sea level rise and suggests a strategic toolbox to work with in the midst of wetness, in the intersection between land and water. It crosses natural, socio-economic and spatial systems and spans across different edge configurations. It focuses on marginalized coastal communities, the ones excluded from climate adaptation policies and furthermore, ignored by formal flood mitigation measures. The toolbox consists of flexible and adjustable strategies, Coping, Re-Inhabiting and Scaling. They suggest science-based and community-informed types of planning. Findings, according to the conditions of indigineous Koli fishing communities in Mumbai suggest that sea level rise adaptation measures have to be multifunctional, rely on availability of resources and relate to local understanding of changing natural conditions. Interventions have to be adapted consistently through time and be approved by the community in order to ensure gradual transition and acceptance. Proposed pathways aim for a coexistence between land, people and water and show how a threat can become an opportunity to provide a resilient and inclusive urban environment in times of inherent uncertainties and constant change. This project opens up a dialogue on how to approach and work with sea level rise in congested urban conditions in the global south using tools within landscape architecture and urban design.

Who said i'm coming?

I'm already here.

You fight me.

You try to control me.

I dare you, Catch me if you can.

"The majority of deaths in the 2005 flood occurred in informal settlements, which are home to more than half of Mumbai’s population. “Slum-dwellers occupying low-lying precarious land are the most vulnerable to environmental stresses and flooding events,” says urban geographer Colin McFarlane, who has studied water and sanitation issues in the worst-hit slums towards the west and east of the city. “But what was striking to me was that there was a triple injustice enacted upon them: first, the flooding circulated rubbish and human waste around the slum, leading to outbreaks of malaria, dengue, leptospirosis, and general ill health since people had less access to food, water, medicine, and healthcare, and emergency services neglected these areas, focusing on middle-class neighbourhoods.

Second, compensation was offered in a haphazard way – for example, it could often only be accessed through people who had the right sorts of contacts. Lastly, slums are often blamed for the actual flooding, and that can enter into justifications for demolition.” With climate change increasing the risks of these disasters, and squeezing finite resources, McFarlane fears that these triple injustices will only deepen."

(Ravindran, 2014 - 'Mumbai will likely flood again – and nobody's doing much about it')

"Together with Guangzhou, Jakarta, Miami, and Manila, Mumbai now regularly appears on a list of cities endangered by climate change. As the cyclones battering coastlines near Mumbai and unseasonal, heavy rains indicate, climate change is not some event in the distant future. It is present. It is here.

Despite the urgent need for adaptation and action in a vulnerable city like Mumbai, the city is ignoring climate adaptation programs and infrastructures in its development planning processes. Worse, Mumbai’s ongoing infrastructure projects don’t address climate change, and as such, may significantly worsen climate risks that its 19 million residents face."

(Anand and Terens, 2019 - 'Explained: How climate change could impact Mumbai by 2050')

Catch me if you can, collage

Content 1

the journey Introduction

13

Project start

14

Acknowledgement Project aim Research objective and questions Hypothesis

Methodology

2

Phasing Timeline & mind map

indentification A critical perspective

23

Expanding cities of the global south Reshaping the urban discourse The omnipresence of climate chage Dense anthropogenic environments Urban space - city's most powerful resource Urban greening for everyone Democratic city in urban landscapes of uncertainties

33

Urban transition Unfolding climate disaster Life dictated by water stories Pirate urbanisation

50

Mumbai; case study

Key takeaways

3

16

understanding Sea level rise and coastal flooding Coastal ecosystems Sea level rise Related risks Disaster risk & vulnerability Coastal resilience

Understanding Mumbai

Context "Where really is the edge in Bombay?"

Historical overview Topography

55

61

Natural systems Coastal habitats

Tidal movement Morphology Sea level rise, 2050 projections The outcome

Worli Koliwada; site of initiations

4

87

Context Connected to nature Livelihoods General mapping

interpretation

Strategic framework Utopian future Adaptation practices against sea level rise Reference projects Evaluation matrix

Strategic toolbox

99

111

Reading guide Urban complexity Coastal acupuncture Thresholds of opportunities Toolbox Strategic timeline Coping Re - Inhabiting Scaling Startegic initiations - Worli Koliwada

5

6

Strategies through local experiences

evaluation Discussion

155

Reflection

159

literature Literature list

164

1

the journey The journey is a chapter containing information on the starting points of the thesis. It provides important outlines, which are followed throughout the whole project. The following pages work through the project aim, research questions and set hypothesis, topics that unfold in the subsequent sections. Methodology, phasing and timeline are integral parts of this work and are elaborated on in this chapter.

- Introduction - Project start - Acknowledgement - Project aim - Research objective and questions - Hypothesis - Methodology - Process - Phasing and timeline

Picture 01: The edge, an interface between land and water, Mumbai © not identified

Introduction Globalisation of technologies, economies and societies is transforming the world along unforeseen directions. To keep up with the changes and challenges, decision makers, architects, planners, landscape architects and similar professions are confronted with the dilemmas of protecting the past and planning for an uncertain future. Contemporary urban environments act as a net, where urbanism, landscape and infrastructure are blended into complex and interdependent systems. ‘Makeshift ecologies’ of urban conglomerations are now being threatened with destructive effects of climate change and are on the verge of collapse (De Meulder and Shannon, 2010).

Although it might seem that the world became paralysed in the hands of Covid-19 pandemic, one should not forget that perhaps climate change presents a more deadly and devastating challenge (Edelkoort, 2021). Extreme urbanisation, pollution, water scarcity and increased natural disasters are some of the issues which threaten a healthy existence of civilization.

It's quite alarming that most of future urbanisation and development will happen in urban conglomeration of the global south (United Nations, 2018). Areas which are influenced by social conflicts, unstable governments and scarcity of resources will also be hit most strongly by destructive effects of climate changes (Brändlin, 2019).

Water, like many other things we pretend to control (Anand, 2017), has been the driving force of human evolution. Ancient civilizations occupied floodplains, low-lying river beds and ocean shores and it is the presence of water that made them flourish. Even today, water presents a commodity and living along the waterfront of rivers, oceans and creeks is perceived as a sign of affluence. Water related extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and by 2050 nearly 2 billion people will be vulnerable to flood disasters (Unesco, 2012). Along that, sea level rise presents a permanent state, and should thus be urgently addressed. Currently 8 out of the 10 largest cities are coastal and by 2050 nearly 600 million people and many of the world's largest economies will be located in low-lying coastal contexts (Barsley, 2020). For a sustainable future in a climate changing world, coastal cities will have to upgrade their urban fabrics and rethink relationships with natural environments in order to cope with stresses put upon them.

Due to social, economic and environmental conditions in the past and the contemporary way of life, nearly 50 % of people affected by sea level rise will be urban poor, out of which 27 % will reside in India (Baker, 2013). Formal institutions of the country and their response to climate change induced disasters don't work coherently and equally across all levels, scales and professions. This is evident in the city of Mumbai, where it seems like mega-infrastructure projects keep following ideas of colonization instead of ideas of sustainable progress (Anand, 2019). Worrying is the ignorance towards slum dwellers in Mumbai who account for more than half of the city's population and the fact that they are continuously being overlooked as stakeholders in climate change adaptation policy and planning (Boyd, Ghosh and Boykoff 2015). City´s predominantly swampy landscapes are continuously being affected by the effects of human agency on territory, where the processes of reclaiming estuary branches and muddy areas became a common practice in both formal and informal urbanization processes. Vanishing of vast mangrove forests has forever changed once wet landscapes into a dry cemented platform that supports daily dynamics of more than 20 million people. Working in a complexity of contested urban environment is a challenge Mumbai has to tackle with a greater solidarity within stakeholders, developers, architects and planners who should aim for equitable, inclusive and sustainable plans.

Key words

globalisation, global south, climate change, informal settlements, social and spatial injustice, urbanisation, landscape architecture, resilience, sustainability, urban greening, water landscapes, coastal ecosystem, gentrification, startegic planning

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Project start Acknowledgement

Project aim

I would like to thank my supervisor Ole Fryd for allowing me freedom within the thesis writing process. Only by that I was able to explore topics in which I found a profound interest.

The project seeks flexible and adjustable solutions or even temporal initiations to address the issue of sea level rise. This comes from a belief that complex landscape conditions such as changes occurring to natural and urban environments caused by climate change, don’t seek fixed solutions or end scenarios but rather call for ideas of gradual transformations which follow rhythms, cycles and uncertainties of nature. The project wishes to open a dialogue on how landscape architects and urban planners can address rising waters in complex urban environments of the global south. It is aiming to bring ideas of how to frame coastal projects with tools within professions of landscape architecture and urban design. The ambition is to provide a toolbox or a set of strategies based for the city of Mumbai and proposes them as flexible. In that way they could be generalized and twisted, scaled and shaped and implemented independently to a specific geography.

Firstly, I’m thankful for all the people surroudning me, who constantly encourage me in pursuing my interests, my parents, sister and friends. Specially I would like to thank my friend and colleague Kritika Kharbanda for always being up for a discussion and providing me a constructive feedback on my work. Her encouragement kept me pushing this project forward. Thanks to Mette Siedler for being a great thesis buddy. Her company made the thesis writing process during those strange 'Covid-19 times' less lonely.

I would as well like to express my gratitude to Rohit Mujumdar, Sai Joshi, Lalitha Kamath and Prayag Bagde for their time and openness to share their experiences, knowledge and ideas. Through these discussions this project gained strength and a local perspective. That both enriched presented work and deepened my fascination for the city of Mumbai.

Catch me if you can takes Mumbai as a coastal, urban laboratory to test and develop this strategic project. The city is struggling under the urbanisation pressure and its residents are living in the midst of climate catastrophe. Work presented here is based on a belief that by populating climate change related stories, especially from those who already experience it, one can contribute to raise awareness and thus collective actions. This thesis aims to urge practitioners in the field of landscape architecture to speak louder on issues such as the ones discussed in this work and take greater responsibility towards the changing landscapes in the global south.

This thesis is aspiring to be a project for a curious, for an openminded and anyone who would like to get inspired by a project which combines theoretical, strategic and empirical work.

Combining themes of environmental, ecological and climate related issues with social ones, like inequality, habitation and justice, this thesis constantly asks itself if such problems can even be solved. Maybe at best they can ‘solely’ be resolved over and over again (Rittel and Webber 1973).

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Research objective Life in the city of Mumbai will be shaped by the scale and severity of climate change related events. The future of the city depends mostly on how well they will be able to adapt to them. Instead of imagining everyday life being sunk in the landscapes of concrete, still and mortar, one has to start envisioning an alternative approach. An approach which would provide a safe, resilient and inclusive urban environments.

Mumbai is at risk of being submerged in the sea by 2050, a threat putting lives and livelihoods of millions in danger. The city therefore needs to urgently address the issue of sea level rise and perhaps turn it into its own advance.

The overarching goal of this thesis is to explore how can one approach the rising waters as a transformation and adaptation opportunity. It focuses on Mumbai’s overlooked edge territories and explores the possibilities of making a city a part of the sea, again.

Hypothesis

The coastline of Mumbai is currently represented and perceived as a division, a line and a distinctive border which divides land from water, dry from wet, public from private. This work aims to blur the notion of an edge and provide examples for adaptation which accommodates high performative values within natural and socio-economic resiliency.

Thresholds of opportunities are zones of coastal landscapes, currently under a seal of concrete, highly polluted or being under a threat of encroachment. I argue that transformation of those led by the tools such as green and blue infrastructure and placemaking strategies can help the shift towards a re-

silient and inclusive environment. Thresholds are in ecology defined “as points of zones at which relatively rapid change occurs from one ecological condition to another” (Ordonez 2020). Congested spatial conditions of Mumbai are dictating these rapid changes from one type of environment to another in an extremely short stretch of space. Coastal areas with their characteristics of constant modifications and fluctuations should rather be considered as “boundaries of gradual change” (Hai-Ping, Jiao and Hai-Li, 2015). This thesis therefore suggests that those changes are not only gradual but also slow and fluid in order to accommodate adaptation strategies against sea level rise.

Work presented aims to explore possibilities of implementation of nature-based solutions in those zones as opportunities to introduce and expand multifunctional green systems to urban edge environments. Those intend to protect the adjacent areas from sea level rise and storms associated with climate change and would not only try to be reproductions of an imagined natural environment (De Meulder and Shannon, 2010), but would also increase ecological performance of the area and help re-establish biodiversity. It relates to concepts of contemporary design practices which try to “progressively transform urban landscapes along multiple ecological dimensions” (Bowring and Swaffield 2013). Besides that, suggested initiations show how climate adaptation plans can be made equitable, without causing gentrification and displacement of marginalized groups of people. Spatial and social justice are some of the most important values this thesis advocates for.

Research questions

How can a threat of sea level rise be an opportunity for a shift towards an environment where people, land and water coexist?

In order to answer the main research question, the following sub-questions arise:

- What are the implications of sea level rise on Mumbai’s coastline dynamics and how do people cope with the events of increased wetness?

- How to build resilience in the shifting edge in order to cope with uncertainties of sea level rise and accommodate territorial symbiosis?

- How can coastal zones of Mumbai be transformed to thresholds of opportunities?

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Methodology

The work presented in this thesis follows a circular approach to project development. It relates to a circular understanding of time and consequent to understanding of natural processes as being reconfigured. Trying to understand a circularity in urban life has concluded the reading of complex urban problems as never really fully solvable (Rittel and Webber, 1973).

Thesis consists of four major phases, each one aiming to answe one of the 'abstract' questions: what, why, how and what if. Although the following pages present a continious and logical seqeuences, the process has been more organic and fluid.

The project started with a review of selected works that havebeen searched by the key words. It included books, academic articles, sections from common literature (online news channels) as well as reviews of some of the relevant video material.

Through that, identification of problems have been outlined and systematically grouped, which helped to shape research questions and hypotheses. Summaries of reviewed literature have been critically examined and shaped as a theoretical background. A part of the framework have been studies of relevant reference projects, both implemented and conceptual/ idea projects. A dataset of adaptation measures adapted by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been assessed accordingly to the project aim and used in an evaluation matrix based on empirical questions. Results were later on used within the development of initiations.

Analytical part of the thesis has been concluded with spatial mappings. Tools such as Scalgo Global, iNaturalista and creative software programs have been used in order to visualize spatial configurations. Through the top down analysing approach, a site of further exploration has been selected. More in depth ethnographic and bottom up research with impressions of the conditions has been limited due to Covid-19 pandemics. Alternatives to the research field trip have been browsings through social media in order to feel the local atmosphere (Facebook group memberships - Mumbai Marine Enthusiasts, Mahin Beach Cleanup, Instagram - searching through the location option - Worli Koliwada). In order to get local perspective on the explored themes, semi-structured online talks have been conducted with following practitioners.

- 16th of April: Rohit Mujumdar (talk #1); Assistant professor at School of Environment and Architecture (Mumbai) Rohit is an architect and planner, who is currently researching spatial and environmental politics of a refugee city on the outskirts of Mumbai, based on copy culture economies and emerging contexts of urbanization and housing in eight second cities across South India (Inhabited Sea, 2021). In Inhab16

ited Sea projects he worked worked with examining a wide range of households in Mumbai and their response to the events of wetness.

- 25th of April & 22th of May (talk 2&4): Sai Joshi; researcher at Tata Trusts Mumbai and UN Habitat, graduate student at Harvard Graduate School of Design Sai is an architect, urbanist and researcher, with a deep understanding of complex urban conditions of the city of Mumbai and abroad.

- 19th of May: Lalitha Kamath (talk #3); Associate Professor at School of Habitat Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences Lalitha is an urbanist and urban planner, based in Mumbai.

She is a co-editor of a volume that focused on a critical exploration of emerging practices of citizen participation. Her latter work has focused on the violence of property urbanism in the global south and bottom-up approach as a means of working with marginalized groups in the contested urban environments. She is also engaged in the studies of fishing communities on Mumbai’s eastern shores.

- 22th of May: Prayag Bagde (talk #5), Associate Architect at Rahul Mehrotra Architects, Mumbai Prayag is an associate architect in Mumbai, who works on projects spanning across architecture and urbanism.

After identification and understanding of the issues and topics according to the theoretical and strategic framework, a strategic concept has been made, depending on the spatial conditions. Further work consisted of developing strategies, later tested on the selected site with initiations. Tools within startegic planning, landscape arhitecture and urban design have been used. This thesis concludes with a look into the future and outlines possibilities for further explorations.

w h a t IDENTIFICATION

w h a t

i f

EVALUATION

“ S O L U T I O N ”

P R O B L E M existing condition

desired condition

w h y

h o w

UNDERTANDING

INTERPRETATION

Thesis process and phases, diagram

FEBRUARY IDENTIFICATION

MARCH what

problem field focus area - research questions

UNDERSTANDING

case study

why

research field theory field - literature review (academia + common literature) A critical perspective

- understanding Mumbai (regional, city & site level) - understanding sea level rise & related topics Theoretical framework

INTERPRETATION

how

hypothesis & aims - framing a scope of the project

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APRIL

MAY

mid-term presentation

talk #1

talk #2

talk #3

talk #4

Mappings

talk #5

EVALUATION

what if

practical field - reference studies

discussion - what comes next - strenghts & limitations

reflection

strategic concept strategy field - utopia as a tool - IPCC practices

Evaluation (comperative) matrix

- urban complexity

showcase scenarios

Coastal acupuncture Strategic steps / toolbox

Initiations

Project timeline and mind map

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2

identification The identification is a chapter whose main ‘abstract’ question of exploration is what. Presented sections work through the process of identifying issues, themes and theories concerning development and climate change related topics, more specifically in the global south. It gives a theoretical ground to this thesis and is split into two parts - one examining urbanisation in the global south, the other is based more specifically to India and Mumbai.

- A critical perspective - Expanding cities of the global south - Reshaping the urban discourse - The omnipresence of climate change - Dense anthropogenic environments - Urban space - city's most powerful resource - Urban greenning for everyone - Democratic city in urban landscapes of uncertanties - Mumbai; case study - Urban transition - Unfolding climate disaster - Life dictated by water stories - Pirate urbanisation - Key takeaways

Picture 02: Striking visual difference reflects a large social and spatial injustrice, Worli, Mumbai © Minor Sights

A critical perspective The aim of this section is to explore existing ideologies and theories in relation to practices in the fiels of contemporary landscape architecture and urban design. The emphasis is given to the global south, taken as an epicenter of current and projected future development. Exploration and critical evaluation of topics should provide a theoretical ground for the evolution of this thesis. A critical perspective is a collection of social and environmental dilemmas, reflected in visible spatial forms, influencing ever-evolving urban organisms.

Interconnectedness of raised issues and questions suggest a need for a tight collaboration within different professions as the only way towards a resilient future.

Expanding cities of the global south According to the United Nations, within the next thirty years, the world is going to be populated by around two more billion people. The population growth is projected to be absorbed mainly by cities and 93 percent of the future urban growth will take place in the less developed regions (UN, 2018). Although there is no universal definition on what developing regions/countries are, they are most frequently described as countries with weak economies, low GDP per capita and agriculture as their main industry (Kuepper, 2021).

Cities present a great concentration of knowledge and ideas.

The exchange, both intellectual and one of resources, has resulted in numerous inventions which have considerably increased the quality of human life. On the other hand, as cities are hubs of human activities, they also pose many dangers and risks, like violence, crime and poor habitation. Despite this, people, mainly the poor, are moving to towns. Henrik Valeur (2014) argues that the main reason for migration in developing regions is that cities often present the only hope of escaping rural poverty and despair. Individuals in cities are in search of opportunities and prospects of better life but are unfortunately too often hit by the opposite. City lands are continuously being entangled in a web of informal settlements and one has to wonder if the informal became a new normal in anthropogenic urban landscapes. Informality, not only visual and tangible, is creeping in on many different levels of public and private life. For example, half of the global urban workforce is informally employed, more so of course in the global south (ILO, 2018). Systematic approaches for issues unfolded by exponential urban growth are needed across all sectors. Sustainable future can’t be made through a solitary vision but requires a holistic and comprehensive strategy. Besides, building cities that “work” – inclusive, healthy, resilient, and sustainable – requires policy coordination and investment decisions.

In 2015 United Nations declared an urgent call for action by all countries - developed and developing - in a global partnership (UN 2015) to combat the most pressing issues. United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDG) form the framework for improving the lives of populations around the world and mitigating changes in climate. They recognize the importance of ending poverty, needs to improve health and education, to reduce inequalities and to spur economic growth - all while tackling climate change and working to preserve remaining natural environments.

While globally set goals are ambitious and much needed for a holistic understanding of problems and desired outcomes, scholars argue that development, planning and adaptation should be specific to sectors and countries and demand a response from local governments and managers (Dang et al. as cited in Boyd, Ghosh and Boykoff, 2004). Developing successful projects requires local cultural, social and economic interpretation of risk and vulnerabilities.

Reshaping the urban discourse

Urbanism, defined as construction and conception of urban environments and their societies, is in fact an old form of occupation dealing with planning and managing human settlements. It has been a part of all major human revolutions, including transitions from agricultural and village societies to complex urban ones. As a profession, it has been actively engaging in relations between human life and living environments. It’s a continuous notion, rather than a static profession. In the past being characterized by improvisation and temporality, it has changed drastically with the growth of urban areas and their demand for stability (political, economical, societal and environmental) and security. Urbanism shifted to be a multidisciplinary field and it is integrating aspects of a wide spectrum of other fields. Being able to constantly Catch me if you can

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reinvent itself is resulting in formulation of new concepts and theories within the field.

Resilience is a term, which from a physical and natural science point of view describes a capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and has the strength to reorganize while undergoing changes and still retain essentially the same function, identity, structure and feedbacks (Walker et al, 2004). It’s a metaphor for change against the change (DeVerteuil and Golubchikov, 2016). With the emergence of the climate change discourse in urban planning, resilient thinking is often understood as a concept to deal with issues such as climate mitigation and adaptation, and urban health. It represents a framework for sustainable urban development and it’s a catalyst and a mechanism through which to plan for livable, healthy and just communities. With the rapid growth of cities and environmental challenges, urban resilience has become an increasingly favored concept (Nadkarna and Rhie, 2012). It refers to “the ability of an urban system-and all its constituent socioecological and socio-technical networks across temporal and spatial scales-to maintain or rapidly return to desired functions in the face of a disturbance, to adapt to change, and to quickly transform systems that limit current or future adaptive capacity” (Meerow, Newell and Stults, 2016). Evolution of resilient thinking is constantly being challenged by complex systems it relates to. Systems may change over time with or without outsourced disturbances (Scheffer, 2009, as cited in Diep, Dodman and Parikh, 2019), which is what evolutionary resilience builds upon (Davoudi et al., 2012). It advocates a view over systems that are complex, chaotic and unpredictable and is recognizing that the system might return to a completely different state after the disturbance. The stressor might be internal and have no linear relationship between the cause and effect (ibid.).

“Evolutionary resilience promotes the understanding of places not as units of analysis or neutral containers, but as complex, interconnected socio-spatial systems with extensive and unpredictable feedback processes which operate at multiple scales and timeframes.”

- Davoudi et al., 2012

Resilience isn't a mechanic property but rather an evolutionary path that determines the transformation of a system (Davoudi et al., 2012). Accompanying term, used to describe a direction of the path towards time, which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs is sustainability (Grant, 2020).

Sustainable urbanisation is essential tool for the realisation of global goals (UN Habitat, 2020). Therefore, the objective is that all current and proposed developments, being large scale landscape alterations or small scale building projects, are happening under the umbrella of sustainability. Sustain24

able and landscape urbanism are becoming prevalent practices in the fields of urban design and planning. It is argued that landscape urbanism has replaced architecture and urban design to become the framework city planning (Waldheim, 2016). Landscape urbanism first used by Charles Waldheim in 1997 is described as the intertwining of both concepts into one (Corner, 2014). It is a new understanding of the city as an ‘ecological metabolism’ that functions similar to landscape, channeling flows and energy, connecting and disconnecting, and expanding and shrining with diverse degrees of immobility and open– endedness over time (Corner, 2014). It is considered as a response to the rigid urbanism, in which the relationships among dynamic structures and processes offer a new and never-ending set of possibilities.

Further on, other specified branches of the profession have emerged. Henrik Valeur has in his book India: The Urban Transition, defined development urbanism: “It's a multidisciplinary field that is focused on sustainable urban development as a means of combating poverty and its related illnesses and of protecting the environment, the climate and the resources. It addresses basic human concerns in urban settings, seeing cities not as “dumb” machines but rather as sophisticated ecologies in which people are adapting to a constantly chaging environemnt.”

- Valeur, 2014

Development urbanism is an architectural theory emerged in 2012 and is aiming to make cities more resilient to the consequences of their own impact on natural environments. It seeks to make them safer, healthier and more productive by integrating all of its citizens. Residents, including poor, disadvantaged and outsides are considered equal in cultural, economic and political spheres of urban life. As a theory it’s relating to both fixed spatial and temporal perspactives of both developemnt and urbanism, and both social and environmental aspects. It aspires to combine aesthetic and ethical, critical and creative, theoretical and practical and it is both descriptive and prescriptive, based on empirical data and personal observations, case-studies and 1:1 experiments.

(Valeur, 2016)

Present ‘novel urbanisms’ are originating from different parts of the world, being ‘developing’ global south or ‘developed’ north. Aiming for an ideal city achieved by uniform way of planning is an utopian idea and as Alfredo Brillembourg states, it’s also unrealistic. Planning for an ideal city is a concept based on the modernist denial of diversity. It is a mode of design that claims omniscience without any contextual proof (Brillembourg and Klumpner, 2011). Development urbanism is planning to re-construct urban societies and environments

from below, rather than from above, in order to provide for diversity, inclusion and sense of belonging. Overlapping ideas of Brillembourg and Valeur on the topic of bottom up approach to planning are getting recognized as the most constructive actions to date (Bowring and Swaffield 2013). When many people are involved it’s easier to identify problems and their root causes (Valeur, 2016). In a globalised and uncertain world, community based action is becoming important as a way to strengthen local relationships and their capacity to adapt to the challenges brought by changing climates. In urban planning, responsibility lies on an exchange between citizens, multi-disciplinary experts, governmental institutions and their environments. Joint efforts to link top-down and bottom-up initiatives are a way to go forward. Institutions and general public should sit together to come up with an agenda for the planning of the the cities (Brillembourg and Klumpner, 2011).

productive to focus on partial modes of space occupation and provide new spatio-temporal tools.

With the exponential urban growth, urbanisation practices are being confronted with a challenge to provide habitable space for 1,5 million people every week (UN, 2019). Planning is not just about providing new environments but it’s also about being prepared for innovative transformation in today's times of inherited uncertainties and change (Davoudi et. al, 2012). Revitalisations, redevelopments and transformations are integral processes within a desired sustainable progress. Many city authorities are recognizing that they are facing resource scarcity, lacking power and control to implement formal masterplans (Bishop and Williams, 2012). Instead, implementations of visionary projects, with establishing long term strategic and design frameworks are on the rise. Within that, signs of temporary urbanisms have emerged (ibid.). Reflecting on the future of sustainable cities, one has to question how to develop tools of transformation, reflecting dynamics, uncertainties and versatile nature of ephemeral cities. Noting urban society is an integral part of the planning process and understanding it as a producer of the temporal system (Gwiazdzinski, 2014) might be a productive starting point. Understanding a city as a living organism or rather seeing it as a subject of continuous organic redesign is not new (Bishop and Williams, 2012). But the new wave of temporality as an emerging concept within urban materiality might be a manifestation or some sort of acceleration of the city's dynamics. Planning for temporal uses and activities brings benefits both to urban society and urban ecosystems by allowing growth and change, both integral aspects of evolution. “Urban materiality is subject to continuous change” (Gwiazdzinski, 2014). It influences social and economic sphere, legal space and property relations. Why then planning for a permanent city, when the future brings uncertainties? The need to look beyond static planning elements and interventions emerges and questions existing urbanisation practices. It might be

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Picture 03: Small scale blue economy threatened by the effects of climate change, Mahim Bay, Mumbai © Vijay Dongale

The omnipresence of climate change Climate change is not a threat happening sometime in the future; climate catastrophe is here today with profound impacts on people’s lives. It’s not a problem of an elite, but of human civilization although it unjustly impacts the poorest and marginalized groups of society (Shi et al., 2016). It’s one of the most significant challenges that is being faced globally.

The 5th Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2014 (IPCC) stated that “severe impact of climate change may be experienced well within the lifetime of the general world population, if dramatic policy changes don't happen fast.” Cities need to make tremendous efforts to mitigate climate change.

Climate change-related risks of urban areas consists of three factors: hazards, exposure of the urban system to these hazards, and the urban system’s inherent vulnerability (IPCC, 2014). Cities are now experiencing more frequent and intense heat waves and floodings, countrysides are being hit by heavy rainfall and severe droughts impacting crop production, oceans are warmer and acidified which leads to decline in coral and other marine ecosystems. Such events not only contribute to deterioration of natural environments but also negatively impact human health and economic systems. Problems of such scale are interconnected. That illustrates well the fact that as a result of climate change mass migration is happening around the world. In 2017, 24 million people were forced to relocate as a result of environmental impacts, three times as many as were displaced by conflicts (ibid.). Emergence of ecological refugees, fleeing from sites of tangible natural disasters which are underlaid with social conflicts, should be recognized, understood and addressed as one of the most urgent global challenges.

Even though shifting climate is a natural phenomenon, human activity directly influences composition of the global atmosphere resulting in faster and more dramatic changes.

The IPCC is now 95 percent certain that humans are the main cause of current global warming. Human influence on the climate system is proven, and recent emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest ever recorded. Climate changes have widespread impacts on human health and the state of natural systems (IPCC, 2014). While humans have become climate responsible agents, changing the most basic physical processes, a new concept of anthropocene has become an important term in science and culture when describing contemporary age. Anthropocene is defined as an era when the Earth moved into a geographical period where human activity is having a dominating presence on various aspects of the natural world and functioning of the planet´s systems (Malhi, 2017).

Each of the last three decades have been scientifically proven as the warmest since 1850 and the period from 1983 to 2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years in the Northern Hemisphere (IPCC, 2014). Continuing greenhouse gas emissions will cause further warming of Earth's surface and have long lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe and irreversible impacts on people and ecosystems. 200 million people have been affected by natural disasters and hazards in the last decade (Aquilino, 2011). Systematic approach and prioritization of climate adaptation and disaster risk management is needed in order to guide development towards resilient environments.

Although urban areas, inhabited by more than 50.000 residents cover less than three percent of the Earth’s surface, they are responsible for an estimated 71 percent of global energy-related carbon emissions (IPCC, 2014). Rigid mitigation policies for urban conglomerations are thus a necessary starting point. Adaptation to climate change refers to the adjustment in organic and human systems in response to actual or expected climate stimuli or their effect, which moderates harm or exploit beneficial opportunities (IPCC, 2014). Urban planning and land management can mitigate the severity of hazards and reduce the levels of exposure and vulnerability.

Land-use planning can reduce transport demands, and building regulations can reduce the need for house heating or cooling (Liu, Fryd and Zhang, 2019). Adaptation planning needs to go beyond administrative levels (Shi, 2020), and should be ambitious, imaginative and also just. Increase of informality and squatter settlements in cities across the globe opens up an important discussion on who really benefits from climate change adaptation strategies. Urban poor and other marginalized groups are most prone to natural hazards due to sensitive ecological zones they most often occupy. They usually don't benefit from risk mitigation strategies adopted by city authorities (Chatterjee, 2010) and too little attention has been given to their vulnerability to climate change (Satterthwaite et al., 2020). Adaptation to climate change induced disasters should provide sufficient infrastructure, which not only has to be adapted but needs to, at the first place, be formally implemented in all city districts. Besides, it should promote transformation of social relations which are often the drivers of ineqaulity and vulnerability (Shi et al., 2016).

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Dense anthropogenic environments In 1989, Bill Mckibben published a book titled The End of Nature, which is recognized as the first book introducing global climate change to a wider public. His statement “We live in a post natural world”, calls out on the domination of anthropogenic forces over the natural ones. A growing number of scholars argue that environment and humanity are intertwined (Moore, 2016). The city and nature are being reconfigured in their interconnected relationship and stresses put up on biotic systems are resulting in wholesale destruction of ecologies (De Muedler and Shannon, 2010). Ecological catastrophes are not only a product of humanity as per se but are a consequence of a system that informs it - capitalism (Rizzo, 2020). Drastic expansions of urban areas towards rural hinterlands, previously untouched by humans, only confirms values of the system - putting economic ones over ecology ones.

De Muedler and Shannon (2010) communicate that capitalism has always ignored social and environmental responsibility.

What are then the main drivers within the system that contributes towards the production of contemporary urbanisation patterns? Focusing on informal settlements, that could be globalization, inequalities, and generally just different gorvenmental priorities. Naturally, emergence of informalities is not to be taken so simplified, since they are a product of systematic and intertwined societal and political driven by global economic machinery. Housing stresses have gained worldwide attention and are not ‘only’ problems of the global south but are present in developed countries too. For example in Europe nearly 30 million people reside in urban slums (Hasrat - Nazimi, 2014). Cities Alliance (no date) has defined informal housing areas as “neglected parts of cities where housing and living conditions are appallingly poor”. Overcrowdedness, poor hygienic conditions and lack of other basic services and high density are conditions often identified as those of areas which occupy the city´s “leftover” spaces. Images of informal housing areas have gained a global presence with a rise of popular films that many times give away a wrong impression and should therefore be reviewed more critically.

Efforts to transform those urban spaces with equitable solutions are an enormous task. It requires a dialogue between decision makers within urbanism, politics and society in general. Enrique Penalosa, a former president of Bogota said, “As long as we have capitalist markets, we can’t do much about inequality… but we can affect quality of life, and create a city where no one feels excluded” (Penalosa, 2007, as cited in Anand and Rademacher, 2011). This statement indicates a shift towards rehabilitation and transformation practices of informal settlements as the best practices. It is important to recognize that those areas aren’t just temporary and transit inhuman problems but are here to stay. They require and de28

serve proper humanization and legalization.

Improving living conditions in informal settlements through better service delivery is not new and has been addressed on all levels. However the risk from climate change and increased exposure to natural hazards accentuate the growing urgency in proactively tackling them. Low income housings are overtaking areas with high disaster risks, like low lying coastal zones, eroded hillsides and riverbanks. As an example, density appears to increase by roughly 10 percent within 1km of waterways in low-income Asian countries (Gret-Regamey and Vollmer, 2013, as cited in Adegun, 2017). An analysis carried out by Seto et al. (2012, as cited in Adegun, 2017) found that expansion of urban settings through informal development is happening and even expanding into some of the most biodiverse areas.

Despite trends of intensive and precarious occupations of landscape, alternative solutions are imagined. Solutions which offer opportunities for urban and territorial regeneration. Green infrastructure is one of the tools which can assist cities to adapt to the effects of climate change and help bring natural and ecologically rich areas back to urban environments. It's usually described as a win-win solution (Diep, Dodman and Parikh, 2019), but only if it's understood not solely as a single purpose technology but as a path to more transformative socio-ecological relationships (Shi, 2020). The term green infrastructure was first introduced in the USA in the 1990s – defined as an “interconnected network of protected land and water that supports native species, maintains natural ecological processes, sustains air and water resources, and contributes to the health and quality of life for America’s communities and people” (Pauleit et al., 2011). Infrastructure becoming landscape is a recurrent topic explored nowadays and it's becoming evident that green infrastructure plays an important role in environmentally sustainable urbanisation in developing countries (Adegun, 2017). However, it might be difficult to argue for their implementation in areas where questions like land - tenure and informality may arise.

Green infrastructure is a network of green and blue systems that deliver multiple social, economic and environmental benefits and services. It's a living network which could help cities adapt to climate changes (Sturiale and Scuderi, 2019), while strengthening the resilience of urban environments to respond to disturbances like loss of biodiversity, flash floods and urban heat island effect - points of cities considerably warmer than surroundings (Sturiale and Scuderi, 2019).

Those networks are defined through the principles of multifunctionality, interlinkages and exchange (Diep, Dodman and Parikh, 2019). Green infrastructure are nature-based solutions, which can be integrated on a large scale, like sand

dunes, wetlands, waterways and green corridors, but they also have a great performative capacity on a smaller scale, where they can be shaped as green roofs, rain gardens, vertical green walls and other blue and green systems. Those kinds of interventions impact lower energy consumption, decrease surface runoff and improve microclimate. Integration of these networks can have a tremendous impact on how cities are designed, besides it has an indirect positive impact on human health. Despite praising blue and green networks as a way towards a resilient future, one should not forget that they are not appropriate everywhere (Shi, 2020). If the social contextual factors are not considered, green infrastructure development may run the risk osf exacerbating local vulnerabilities, especially in dense informal settlements (Diep, Dodman and Parikh, 2019). Critical urban scholars argue that developers are using urban greening projects, which green infrastructure is usually a part of, to boost property values and displace already disadvantaged groups (Anguelovski et al. 2019a, b, as cited in Shi, 2020).

Urban space, city's most powerful resource

Building healthy communities that have an opportunity to thrive in sustainable, safe and resilient environments are some of the objectives of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Urban and landscape design interventions can be done through providing places which foster equality, diversity and inclusion. Giving communities a sense of pride and belonging can’t be measured quantitatively but can be observed via their engaging with public spaces. It is in those public spaces that people’s social life unfolds. As contemporary cities expand, open public spaces are shrinking. Thereafter, one might claim that urban space is the city's most powerful resource. Unfortunately, a big portion of those have become leftover spaces, often because city officials don't recognize it’s potential.

On the other hand, urban spaces may contribute to inequalities. Capital driven interventions with top-down planning approaches are influencing social hierarchies through symbolic and physical techniques of division and exclusion, spanning from privatization of space to spatialized narratives of inequality (Mohan, 2015, as cited in ILO, 2018). Physical nature of public spaces may increase crime and violence. Designing safe open areas, where marginalized groups of people feel welcome and celebrated remains high on planning agendas.

It requires a balanced approach, which can help uplift underprivileged from low societal positions and blur distinctive class boundaries.

Planning process, especially in congested urban environments with a diversity of opposing stakeholder interests, takes time.

As discussed, quality urban spaces have the power to lead to a broader societal change. Sometimes simple, more focused interventions hold the possibility to create a space which stimulates a greater community’s engagement and might provoke larger contributions to the planning processes. Small scale, precise and quick interventions are the essence of Urban Acupuncture (Lerner, 2014). It is the concept of promoting urban regeneration at the local level and advocates for an adaptable framework of urban renewal, regenerating neglected spaces, with incrementally deployed urban strategies and thus utilizing social infrastructure of the city (Cutieru, 2020). This way, urban acupuncture aims to activate healthy responses within the city (Lerner, 2014) via triggering a chain reaction of improving the quality of surrounding urban environments (Casagrande, 2015).

“Public space is shaped by society - its power, relationship, priorities and fears” (Carmona, 2010, as cited in ILO, 2018). The space has a capacity to mode and cultivate social relations and a power to connect neighborhoods into a well balanced and coherent unit. Henrik Lefebvre (1968) argues that space is a (social) product. Therefore, one has to recognize that space is shaped by its residents and residents shape the place. Public spaces represent democratic city and reflect community identity. Creative and participatory placemaking strategies are thus an integral tool when planning for an equitable city. They have a power to attenuate and weaken urban physical boundaries (Silva, 2020). When different inhabitants are sharing the same space it enables them to build social cohesion and consequently connect underprivileged areas into a larger motion of the city (Silva, 2020).

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Urban greening for everyone Academics are finding that urban projects are contributing to displacement of most vulnerable people (Anguelovski et al. 2019a, b, as cited in Shi, 2020). Parks, gardens and other forms of open space have traditionally developed in wealthier parts of the city, where their main focus was beautification (Maruani and Amit-Cohen, 2007). It seems like many urban greening projects being developed nowadays still follow ideas of colonisation where only the elite could enjoy their benefits.

Instead of categorizing projects as for included and excluded or privileged and marginalized, planners should rethink who really profits from them and how to claim the right to green city for everyone.

Environmental or green gentrification is the influx of wealthy residents to historically deprived areas due to new green spaces and is an increasingly common paradox around the world (Rigolon and Nemeth, 2020). It's an important environmental and spatial justice issue, further exacerbated by climate injustice. Scholars are examining how green vision and interventions incorporating blue and green networks as a way to adapt to climate changes may result in increasing urban inequalities, through displacement of socially, racially and economically vulnerable groups. Findings from studies carried by Rigolon and Nemeth (2020) suggest that location and function of park-like structures are strong predictors of gentrification. Development-oriented greening is forgetting about community based greening practices. Although focus is missing on the issue of green gentrification in developing countries, informal practices carried out in communities suggest that there is a motivation to shift development trajectory.

Linda Shi (2020) reflects that many projects in the global south take ideas from indegineous knowledge, build the on the capacility of women-led associations, help communities gain secure land tenure, and design landscapes that support livelihoods, and biodiversity. That suggests the potential that greening initiatives should go beyond glamorised visions of green systems. One should not forget that the right to inhabit a place should not be connected to, sometimes pre-set social spheres.

Democratic city in urban landscapes of uncertainties “Citizens belong to the city, but does the city belong to all and do all citizens have an equal right to the city?”

Domination of mega cities around the globe presents a huge burden on the natural environment and human societies but at the same time presents an enormous opportunity. Depending on how building, or rather transforming existing cities to accomodate an ever growing population of 1.3 million people 30

each week (UN, 2018) is done, it could become one of humanity's greatest successes or one of its worst failures. Looking back through the history, it can be noted that environmental deterioration and social conflicts have been some of the reasons for the decline of many urban civilizations. Social polarization or increased differences in social and economic structures is present around the globe, most notably through its spatial dimension - distinctively different patterns of inhabited segments, making cities mosaics of diverse neighborhoods.

Growing indifferences of people in cities are highlighting a discussion of spatial justice and the right to the city (Lefebvre, 1968). It is not just about the right to urban amenities and opportunities; it is also about a right to participate in and contribute to the transformation of society and its relation to the individual and the environment. Despite theories uplifting injustice and alike values in city planning, it seems as if anthropogenic cities happen instantly, without either a past, in which things were different, or a future, in which things may be different.

It is the element of unpredictability which presents a new aspect for planning and designing cities today. Perhaps the future depends on how successfully it will be integrated into our ever-evolving surroundings - landscapes of uncertainties.

Picture 04: Lack of open space in Dharavi, Mumbai

Tajikistand

China

Afganistan

Pakistan

Nepal

Bhutan New Delhi Jaipur Varanasi

Bangladesh

Myanmar

Ahmedabad Kolkata Surat

Mumbai Pune Hyderabad

Bay of Bengal

Arabian Sea Chennai Bangalore

Andaman and Nicobar Islands

Laccadive Sea

India, location diagram

Mumbai

Case study

Aim of this section is to outline some of the issues of urbanisation practice in India, its effects on growing urban environments and on declining natural ones. The country is facing an uncertain future in an anthropogenic epoch, full of risks and disasters induced by unsustainable human practices. Although sustainability has always been in the core of Indian society (Pandey, 2017), there is a risk that issues such as pollution, poverty and urbanisation will take an unsustainable and irreversible turn.

Can a mega city, like Mumbai, ever be balanced and holistically envisioned?

Impressions from Mumbai

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Picture 05: Social polarization, Dhobi Ghat, Mumbai

Urban transition "One of the defining parameters for delivering India’s sustainable development agenda will be the development path chosen by urban India."

- Economic Survey of India, 2018 (Department of Economic Affairs)

It is projected that India will undergo the largest urban transition globally in the next few decades (Khosla, 2019). Although the country is home to some of the world´s biggest metropolises, it is still predominantly rural with seven out of ten Indians living in settlements designated as rural (Hindustani Times, 2011). In the midst of urban transition, a growing number of these settlements are showing characteristics that can no longer be described as rural, but are already now emerging as urban. Urban growth is evenly distributed among cities, but they emphasize that one third of the fastest growing cities are in fact small towns (Khosla, 2019). This can result in creation of bigger conglomerations or clusters, combining urban centers, cities and villages. The growth can be driven by natural growth of urban settlements and by rural-urban migrations, as well as seasonal and daily migrations. To support such movements, two thirds of India´s built environment will have to be constructed between 2010 and 2030 (Valeur, 2014). Urbanisation practices are extending well beyond town borders and into agriculturally rich hinterlands. These are irreversibly changing land use patterns, inherently linked to traditional planning practices. Additional stresses put on the land by climate change are forcing people to relocate for the sake of a better future, resulting in a vicious circle of urbanisation.

Mumbai

“The past two decades have been momentous in Mumbai´s history; the city's name changed from Bombay to Mumbai, the city lost its status as India's premier port and textile manufacturing center. Yet although its core faltered, the city's periphery swelled.”

- Rahul Mehrotra, 2010

Mumbai's supergrowth and its fast transformation towards becoming a Global City is providing a unique urban and coastal laboratory to examine contemporary urbanisation practices in a rapidly changing environment. City's highly productive estuarine lands and waterscapes have been paved over, biodiversity hotspots such as mangrove forests and rich coastal habitats have been transformed into barren wastelands and concrete landscapes. Productive agricultural zones are being bulldozed to make room for expensive new ports, airport runways and rail terminals (Berger, 2010). Unsustainable practices following an exponential growth of migrations to the city, brought environmental changes to the region which established a mode of occupation of the territory that overlooks the repercussions of the natural environment. Sustainable growth of Mumbai with its extensive urban areas is possible only if the city is ready to embrace the watery nature and accept and foster its natural state (Schierhold, 2010). A long coastline, or as Metha and Modi (2020) have called it, a 148 km of “portals between deep sea and human settlement” present an opportunity for green urban transition without drastic and destructive land reclamations.

Mumbai represents an extraordinary, possibly unique, “concentration of risk” (Ghosh, 2016). Those risks are connected to anthropogenic causes, which the city needs to appropriately address. In a hope for comprehensive management to respond to the effects of those risks, the city's authorities have presented (2019) a new vision for the city in its Disaster Management Plan: “Making a resilient Mumbai City where communities respond to disasters with a sense of urgency and in a planned way to minimize human, property and environmental loss by developing a holistic, proactive, multi-disaster and technology driven strategy for DM.”

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It is on the shoulders of the city to finance and support projects which foster resilience and sustainability, to reduce risks of disasters and hazards. Quite contrary, development practices seem to overlook the city's own vision. Mumbai is producing its own disasters, currently with a drastic change to the western coastline with construction of the Coastal Road.

Reclamation of land and creation of land massiv along the whole western coastline will have a tremendous impact on marine life, fishing dependent coastal communities and it will increase vulnerability of adjacent neighborhoods to storm surges and high tidal waves (Anand, 2019). The project is one more in a line of colonization practices, expanding urban zones to Mumbai's biggest left natural(-ish) territory - the sea. It is yet another proof that today the city is doing less than nothing to address its ecological and social vulnerabilities to climate change, storm surges and flooding (Anand, 2019).

“Mumbai is a city of missed opportunities.”

- Kelly Shannon, 2009

Population

Traffic

20.668.000 - Mumbai Metropolitan Region, 2021 (Macro Trends, 2021)

530 cars/km on Mumbai's roads; ideally 61 cars per km (Times of India, 2019)

Density

Daily trips

32.303,0 km2 - two thirds of the population in Mumbai lives in 5 percent of the city (Wikipedia, 2021a)

21 million trips/day in Mumbai (The Urban Climate Challenge: Rethinking the Role of Cities in the Global Climate Regime, 2015)

Open space

Urbanisation

1.1 m2 per person in Mumbai (London: 3168 m2, New York: 26.4 m2) (Times of India, 2012)

94% urban, 6% rural , 1000 villages (MMRDA, 2011)

Informal economy

81% of India’s employed individuals work in the informal sector (Inter Press Service, 2018) 36

Thane

Greater Mumbai

Navi Mumbai

Navi Mumbai

Uran

Mumbai Metropolitan Region, map

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Picture 06: Overlaid vulnerabilities to climate change, Mahim - Bandra Pipeline, Mumbai (freshwater distribution) © Kristian Bertel

Unfolding climate disaster “Climate change is the greatest threat to the survival and human civilisation as we know it” - Narendra Modi, 2018

Few countries in the world are as vulnerable to the effects of climate change as India is with its vast population that is mostly dependent on its agrarian economy, its extensive coastal area and the rich Himalayan region. It's the world's third largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, right after China and the USA (Timperley, 2019). Rice paddies, cattle and coal power plants are main sources of emission, which continue to rise steeply, although emissions per - capita remains to stay below the global average (ibid.). Nevertheless, it is important to note that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is not an easy goal to tackle in a developing country. Indian nation intends to make major leaps in its development in the upcoming decades. Achieving such leaps will require considerably more energy than the country currently consumes. Emissions are set to rise in the upcoming years as economic growth drives demand for energy. Predictive models found that India’s emissions could increase 90% between 2014 and 2030 (Timperley, 2019). Supporting fact is that no country so far has managed to lift itself out of poverty without an accompanying surge in emissions. For example, China’s spectacular economic rise, led to an explosive jump in its carbon emissions (Buck and Hornby, 2017).

India is home to half of the world’s 20 most polluted cities. According to the Lancet Planetary report (as cited in Timperley, 2019), one in every eight deaths is connected to greenhouse gas emissions, more specifically due to air pollution. Despite that, around 70% of the country's population depends on traditional biomass energy like coal and wood, which is inefficient and causes high levels of indoor air pollution (Timperley, 2019), extremely harmful to human health. At the same time, around 13% of Indians don't even have access to energy (Timperley, 2019). A big source of emissions is agriculture, country's most profitable industry and ironically dependent on healthy natural conditions. It is responsible for around 16% of India’s greenhouse gas emissions. Of this, 74% is due to methane produced from livestock – largely cows and buffalo – and rice cultivation. The remaining 26% comes from nitrous oxide emitted from fertilisers (Timperley, 2019).

India’s annual mean temperature has already risen by around 1.0C since 1850 (Timperley, 2019). Extreme precipitation is likely to increase substantially over the western coast and west central India. Overall, the summer monsoon rainfall will show a 20% increase over the present rate (Timperley, 2019).

Despite the tremendous loss to life and property, displacement and other far-reaching adversities, the mental health

impact of flooding might impact citizens beyond imaginable.

For example, round half the children and adolescents exposed to the ‘supercyclone’ in the state of Orissa in India reported symptoms of the post-traumatic stress disorder syndrome of different severity even after one year (Kat et al., 2007). Reduced emissions through changes in consumption patterns, adoption of energy saving measures, dietary change and reduction in food wastes could considerably contribute to the pace of global warming and its consequences, such as higher temperatures and heavier rainfalls. For example, the recent lockdown due to global pandemic, has influenced a drop of carbon dioxide emissions by 30 percent compared to the same month of April in 2019 (Timperley, 2019).

The quantification of goals to combat climate changes in India consists of reducing emissions by 33 - 35 percent by 2030 (compared to 2005), achievening 40 percent cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuelbased energy resources by 2030 and creating an additional carbon sink of 2.5–3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2030 through additional forest and tree cover (GoI, 2016, as cited in Kumar and Naik, 2019). Besides, future goals include putting forward and propagating a healthy and sustainable way of living based on traditions and values of conservation and moderation, adopting a cleaner path towards economic development, better adaptation by enhancing investments in development programmes in sectors vulnerable to climate change and building a capacity for a quick diffusion of cutting edge climate technology (Gol, 2016, as cited in Kuman and Naik, 2019). India received by far the highest level of singlecountry funding (725 million dollars) approved by multilateral climate funds in absolute terms from 2013 to 2016, according to Carbon Brief analysis (Timperley, 2019).

CO2 emissions

Cities account for more than 70% of carbon dioxide emissions (C40, no date)

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Mumbai

Mumbai is in the midst of a climate emergency. While it´s slow and difficult to perceive it everyday, the scale of devastation of urban population and economy caused by extreme weather events in recent years highlights city’s vulnerability to the effects of climate change.

A city, originally reclaimed from the sea, is extremely susceptible to flooding, being it from intense rainfall or sea induces storms. Projections imply that it´s the second most vulnerable city to sea level rise, right after Guangzhou, China (de Murieta, 2020 as cited in Chatterjee, 2020). The city is surrounded by the fastest warming part of the fastest warming ocean, Arabian Sea. Sea level is rising three times faster since 2000 than since 1900 (Timperley, 2019). Warmer atmosphere is contributing to the creation of tropical cyclones in the Indian ocean. Although historically the city has not been hit by any major super cyclone storm, there is a finite probability that one could occur (Sobel et al., 2019). Already in June 2020 when the city was just narrowly missed by a first cyclonic storm since 1891. Large-scale destruction was averted when the storm made landfall just south of Mumbai. Increase in tropical storms could go from average 1 per year to 4 per year (ibid.). A conservative estimation shows that about 40 percent of the population will be affected by coastal floodings (ibid.).

Additionally, city might be hit by excessive rainfall each year, which would “normally” occur only once in about 100 years.

It is projected that heavy rain days will increase by 25 percent (ibid.). Already today, rainfall is characterized by extreme spikes that condense the precipitation into short periods and overwhelm the city completely. Warmer seas are impacting its biological productivity and for fishermans it means fewer fish to catch and consequently an economic distress. The risk exists that those threats would resonate with each other and become even more potent. When two extreme events occur in simultaneously, they create a compound extreme event that greatly amplifies risks due to each event as well as the whole.

Not to mention Mumbai´s natural conditions, a city without a proper territorial hinterland. That makes it impossible to evacuate in a disaster emergency, even with a pre-prepared and rehearsed rescue plan.

When those kinds of challenges are imposed on the city's housing crisis, insufficient public infrastructure and other social problems which influence spatial configuration of space, it resembles a fertile ground to extract economic growth in exchange for social exploitation and environmental abuse.

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Coastal flooding

Mumbai is the 2nd most vulnerable city to climate change, after Dhaka (Climate Change Vulnerability index 2014) Tropical cyclones

App. 76% of the total loss of human lives from cyclonic storms has occurred in India and Bangladesh (IPCC, 2014) Assets at risk

The 6th largest ‘at-risk’ assets among all major port cities, by 2070 assets worth $1.3 trillion would be at danger (OECD, 2007)

freshwater scarcity

increased annual rainfall erosion

environmental degardation

pluvial flooding sea level rise poor air quality

increased mean temperature urban heat island effect

salinitization increased risk of cyclones

S subsidence

decrease in small scale blue economy

2 km

4 km

6 km

8 km

10 km

Climate vulnerability, diagram

Life dictated by water stories "Earth provides enough to satisfy everyone's need, but not for anyone's greed” - Mahatma Gandhi

India, one of the oldest civilizations in the world, is also one among the few countries named after a river system, Indus River. It's a “home” to more than seven holy rivers, and interestingly, almost all its rivers are ascribed to female goddesses. That perhaps indicates the understanding that rivers, with their abundance of water, are nurturing and the most important life-support systems. Most of the cities have been built over river or coastal fronts, therefore traditional water management practices are of a great heritage and cultural importance.

Water systems and the relationships between them and society are complex and multi-faced problems. Anthropogenic driven disturbances within water systems like floodings, water scarcity, draughts, warming and alkalinity of oceans are all interconnected and to understand one of them means touching upon the rest. For example, intrusion of seawater to fresh water aquifers due to changes in ocean dynamics impacts provision of potable water. India's supply of freshwater for agricultural and individual purposes relies on seasonal occurrence of monsoon, and provision from Himalayan glaciers.

India is placed at 120th among 122 countries in the water quality index (NITI, 2015) and nearly three quarters of households don't have drinking water at their premises. Although ´right to water´ is recognized by the supreme court as a part of ´right to life´, it is still denied in terms of quality and quantity, for too many, mainly the poor, the vulnerable and underprivileged (Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India, 2015). Much of India is facing severe water stress conditions due to rapid urbanisation, negligible augmentation of raw water resource, out-of-date infrastructure and poor water governance (Chatterjee and Roy, 2021). Approximately 377 million urban dwellers face water shortages, 200.000 people die each year from inadequate or unsafe water supplies. Utilization and management of water sources and its infrastructure lies on the shoulders of each state (NITI, 2018).

Besides stories of inadequate water provision, sea level issue is raising its voice. 25 % of the population of the country lives along the coastal regions (Panda, 2020). Ghoramara Islands, a part of Sundarbans delta on the Bay of Bengal, are under a serious threat of disappearance. According to the village elders, nearly half of the islands have already been submerged in the sea. The islands are home to 4.800 people, down from 7.000 a decade ago. Ghoramara is among many islands in the delta affected by rising sea levels and soil erosion, caused by climate 42

change. Floods have transformed the island’s shoreline into a muddy edge. As well as damaging homes, floods destroy valuable betel leaf crops that many islanders have depended on for a living. (The Third Pole, 2018) Mumbai

The city and its citizens are made by the everyday practices around water provisioning - practices that are as much about thirst as they are about making durable forms of belonging to the city" - Nikhil Anand, 2017

City, with a history strongly connected to its proximity to water, surrounded by the sea, irrigated by river and annually flooded by the monsoon, is facing a water crisis (ibid.). Both in terms of its availability and quality but as well as water driven natural disasters. Public water network is distributing water but also expands inequality. Even though water is a collective resource and therefore a public good, availability of it in Mumbai depends also on the work of the water department. This crisis not only reflects inadequacy of institutions to make equitable actions for provision of potable water, but also shows negative effects climate change has on its water systems and how that affects its distribution.

Open defecation

48% of population deficates in the open (BBC, 2014) Handwashing facilities

38% in least developed countries have a basic handwashing facility with soap and water at home, leaving out app. 3 billion people (United Nations, 2019)

Vasai Creek Kamori River 00

km 60

km Ta ns a La ke

75 ar

pe

Up

a ats

65

km

Bh

od

ak

Sa g

above ground water supply

n

ra

ita

a rV

km

1 ar

M

Modak Sagar Dam Tansa Lake Dam

Manori Creek

Upper Vaitarana Dam Bhatsa Dam Source info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_sources_of_Mumbai

Ulhas River

Tulsi Lake Desai Khadi

Malad Creek Vihar Lake

Powai Lake

Thana Creek

Mithi River

Mahim Bay

Panvel Creek

Haji Ali Bay

Back Bay

Karanja Creek

2 km

4 km

6 km

8 km

10 km

Water supply, diagram

26/06/2005

On 26th of July in 2005, Mumbai came to a standstill. A heavy rain poured down on the state of Maharashtra and resulted in more than 1.094 deaths (Wikipedia, 2021b), a huge burden on the financial sector and an enormous amount of property loss. It happened to be the eight heaviest rainfall ever recorded and it has caught Mumbai completely unprepared for an event of such scale. In 24 hours only the city received around 944 mm of rain, equivalent to a 100 year event. Many were stranded on the road, homes were flooded while the rain showed no mercy to the city's most vulnerable. Mumbai´s life line, linear train connection was paralysed due to water logging, as well as highways and most important arterial roads, resulting in millions of people unable to reach their homes.

Suketu Mehta in his book Maximum City (2005) describes the generosity people have shown to each other, while the government was standing still: “Mumbaikers were busy helping each other. Slum-dwellers went to the motorway and took stranded motorists into their homes and made room for one more person in shacks, where the average occupancy is seven adults to a room. Volunteers waded through waist-deep water to bring food to the 150,000 people stranded in train stations.

Human chains were formed to get people out of the floods. Most of the government machinery was absent, but nobody expected otherwise. Mumbaikers helped each other, because they had lost faith in the government helping them. On a planet of city dwellers, this is how most human beings are going to live and cope in the twenty-first century.” Absence of an official disaster management plan showed how poorly the city is prepared for such an event. Aterfwards, officials have recognized the need for implementation of flood protection plans. Sea walls, regeneration of the city´s nullahs and other, mostly heavily engineered tools have been proposed and executed but the officials have completely missed the performative capacity and economic, social and environmental values nature based solutions can bring.

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Picture 07: Neglected drainage system of the city, Dharavi, Mumbai

Pirate urbanisation “Were people to mingle only with those of like mind, every man would be an insulate being."

- Thomas Jefferson

Sustainability has always been a core component of Indian culture, integrated into its philosophy and values. Environmentally-friendly traditional practices are an important part of people's lifestyle, and the beliefs associated with compassion and respect to nature are rooted into cultural and moral ethos. Importance of nature, resources and ecology can be linked with customs, traditions and cultural practices. Further research on those links shows how they are connected to the health and sustainability of ecosystems (Manjrekar, 2017). Traditional concept has always been circular economy, and the culture of reuse/recycle/repair is a part of circularity in Indian lifestyle. For example, a thriving informal recycling network has been established in Dharavi (Mumbai), with a door to door collection system and its further linkage to the recycling industry. In this regard, some argue that India is one of the least wasteful economies (Pandey, 2017, as cited in Kumar and Naik, 2019), where resources are used as long as possible. Looking back through history, the Industrial Revolution at the beginning of the nineteenth century has changed the omnipresence of circular economy and the country somewhere lost its overall sustainable track. Industrialisation, capitalism and globalisation have influenced over consumption and exploitation of resources to the extent where traditional sustainable practices are losing its value and power.

Traditionally build environment in India has a deep connection with culture and its associated practices (Manjrekar, 2017). Culturally driven composition of build and open spaces gives out an idea of the importance of public spaces, where common activities can take place. Often they narrate social hierarchies and create ways of social acceptance. That is many times overlooked in predominantly top down way of planning, resulting in increased injustices and disturbed social orders. Public spaces such as ghats, holy mountains, trees and groves, step wells and water-bodies are not just spaces connected to diverse religions and ethos but also reflect Indian understanding of connections to nature. Although lifestyles might be changing, traditional structure of the built environment, different practices of land management and diverse landscape concepts may to some degree remain unchanged or be adapted even with development trends in society.

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Kumbh Mela

Sacred places have been an important factor in the story of human evolition and are as well a component of Indian dayto-day practices. Those natural or artificial typologies are attracting pilgrims from all over the globe and are worshiped as places of religious meanings.

Kumbh Mela is one of such places, only that the scale of it is nothing like anything else. It’s a Hindu religious festival, occurring every twelfth lunar year in northern India. Kumbh is the largest public gathering in the world, which in 2013 attracted more than seventy million people in a span of 55 days.

This pop-up mega city is located on the confluence of Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati, where people come in search of immortality on their religious and spiritual paths. Geographical and natural conditions are allowing this temporal city to happen during the months of February and March, when sandy and dry floodplains are relieved on the banks of the rivers.

The city is laid out on a grid structure, assembled, inhabited and disassembled, all the matter of weeks. It is providing all the infrastructure of a permanent city - housing, hospitals, roads, bridges, cell-phone connections, lightning, public spaces and much more. What is perhaps most fascinating in terms of urbanism is the fact that this ephemeral megacity is designed to be disassembled. Used materials are being recycled, repurposed and reused, all while traces of the festival are being erased by monsoon water. This rapid but dynamic and flexible model of planning is allowing us to extract lessons which can be used and applied in today's fast paced urbanisation of contemporary world.

Kumbh Mela

Picture 08: Kumbh Mela, influx of people on temporal ponton bridges

Picture 09: Kumbh Mela, ephemeral mega city © Bennett Stevens

Catch me if you can

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Mumbai

Mumbai is a city of multiple faces and an infinite amount of meanings and myths, adopted by its residents and visitors.

It's clear that the city is loved among its citizens and being a Mumbaikar is much more than just living in Mumbai, it's about belonging. It´s a melting pot of many religions, cultures and nationalities where people come chasing their dreams as it is, after all, the city of dreams. It may be understood as a place of profound uncertainty and profound possibility.

This is a city in a constant motion, where the physical fabric is characterized by irregularity and dualism. Many refer to Mumbai as a city of contrasts, as signs of extreme poverty and richness are truly the most striking images of the city. The city comprises two components that occupy the same geographical location, but different social, economic and physical spheres. Rahul Mehrotra, an architect, urban designer and a professor sums up the city´s duality as coexistence of a static and kinetic city, where in Mumbai physical and visual contradictions coalesce in a landscape of pluralism (Mehrotra, 2008). Even though those two worlds share the same space, they understand and occupy it differently. The static city is characterized by its formality in architectural forms, being built with permanent materials, like steel, brick and concrete.

Meanwhile, the kinetic city is rather a three-dimensional construct of incremental development. The kinetic city is often built with recycled and low-key materials, such as plastic, trash wood and scrap metal. Further on, Mehrotra argues that those characteristics have led Mumbai to develop its own, bazaar-like urbanism, where formal and informal worlds are interwoven with each other as a result of fragmentation of spatial services. The static city is embracing the kinetic one and is being informed and remade by its logic. Interdependence of those two entities can be observed through the fact that approximately 60 percent of the population occupy kinetic grounds in only 10 percent of the city's land and further on, 70 percent of citizens work in the informal sector. It is them who allow Mumbai to be competitive on a global scale. This is not suggesting that one should embrace expanded emergence of informality, most vividly seen as a lack of formal housing, but suggests that those two worlds are heavily dependent on each other, even though city´s officials might not recognize that. As an example, Jockin Arputnam, an activist and a president of the National Slum Dwellers Federation has in an interview for the Times of India (2005, as cited in Anand, 2017) explained the dependance of those two worlds from a perspective of a slum dweller: “We are in fact human earthmovers and tractors. We leveled the land first. We have contributed to the city. We carry your shit out of the city. I don’t see citizens’ groups dredging sewers and digging roads. This city is not for the rich only. We need each other. I don’t beg, I wash your clothes. Women can go to work because we are there to look after their children… Be-

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cause we are there, women can walk safely at night. . . . It’s my dream that one day, all slum-dwellers will refuse to go to work.

Will Mumbai survive that day? Who will build your grand projects and work in your malls?... It’s the whole serving class that has made Mumbai a world-class city, not the middle class.”

Therefore, the challenge of the city is to accept those unique conditions and learn from each side. Streets and public open spaces have to be transformed into a space where static and kinetic characteristics overlap and coexist. One should reflect on how living spaces are used and draw temporal conclusions to be incorporated into official city plans. Mumbai's development plans do not reflect those ideas. The first official Development Plan being adopted only in 1991 and reviewed every 20 years is a speculative and entrepreneurial (Economic Times, 2018), giving priority to rigid and greedy real estate industry. The new plan is in place until 2034 and is purpusing the facilitation of growth and the promotion of that exact industry (Economic Times, 2018). The new plan is according to The Times of India, aiming to create 8 million more jobs and one million affordable homes. It is increasing FSI, meaning densifying an already extremely dense urban environment and creating more land with less restrictions (Economic Times, 2018).

So what does this mean for the city? While the officials are trying to create a city image similar to one of Shanghai, Dubai or Singapore, with creating more reclamations and denser urban environments, they overlook the repercussion that has on natural systems, social patterns and unique kinetic image. P K Das (2018) argues that the government is failing to produce equitable plans and is pushing the city into a regrettable state.

Further on, he states that there is a need for comprehensive planning with the trust being on protecting and enhancing public spaces. Plans should acknowledge rivers, creeks, lakes, mangroves, wetlands and beaches as open space and should be geographically and culturally integrated into neighborgoods via participatory planning tools. City needs plans which would redefine land use, place inhabitants and community at the center of planning and not just real estate and buildingpotential (Das, 2018).

Perhaps, landscape interventions rooted in the contextual study of multifaceted and fluid conditions, including one of culture, can embrace the kinetic city, with temporality and flexibility and can at the same time reflect the needs of the static one with their resilient vision.

FutureMumbai?, collage

Key takeaways

How can a threat of sea level rise be an opportunity for a shift towards an environment where people, land and water coexist?

Following critically examined contemporary struggles and overviewing possible approaches as ways of planning and designing for improved conditions, key outtakes are provided down below. Those takeaways aim to wrap up the theoretical field of work, which acts as a base for further explorations within the scope of this thesis. General issues of the city of Mumbai are listed here but are later on more structurally elaborated (see pages 112&113) in order to position the proposal more precisely into the web of urban complexity.

Extracted takeaways in the academic field provide initial approaches and tools within fields of landscape architecture and urban design that are used in the pathway towards the desired condition - coexistence.

Mumbai; case study - contemporary urban struggles

Exponential urban growth and centralization With the most important institutions and high concentration of employment opportunities in the southern peninsula, Mumbai is struggling with urban issues such as traffic congestions, housing shortage and high pressure on the urban and natural environment. That is reflected in the low quality of public spaces, lack of open green areas and poor urban health.

Bad governance and lack of responsible planning

Current developing projects indicate ignorance of decision makers and inventors towards quality natural habitats and urban spaces. They follow colonisation like ideas and overlook the repercussions the effects have on local communities. Lack of responsible planning results in increased gentrification, especially along the waterfronts.

Precarious occupation of land, resulting in spatial and social injustice

Constant influx of migrant workers, high property values and general lack of affordable housing is resulting in increased appearance of informal housing areas. When overlaid with the issue of centralization and privatization, social and spatial injustice are consequent phenomenons. Greater responsibility towards the solutions should come from the institutional level.

Ecosystem degradation due to pollution, infrastructure and improper conservation

Mumbai’s natural system is on the verge of collapse. That is due to increased pollution, contamination of natural sources, large infrastructure within some of the most ecologically sensitive zones and conservation that tries to frame nature rather than allow flows and exchanges. External actors are pushing natural conditions towards an irreversible state.

High disaster risks and overlapping vulnerabilities

Due to the geographical location and anthropogenic factors, Mumbai is susceptible to the effects of climate change. Natural disasters pose a high risk to the city without hinterland and proper evacuation routes. With the uptake of global warming, Mumbai can be seen as a place of overlaid climate vulnerabilities, accompanied by social conflicts.

Poor maintenance and lack of contemporary services

Mumbai is entangled in a web of outdated service infrastructure and lacks proper maintenance. Although the city gets annually flooded by monsoon rains, drainage still lacks appropriate capacity. Besides, fresh water provision is unstable, and the city is grasping under an unsustainable garbage system.

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Academic field - possible tools and approaches

Clear understanding of urban resilience and environment as large, interconnected system With the uptake of climate induced disasters, urban resilience has become a favoured concept. It is important to understand it comprehensively and act accordingly to all the aspects within it. Besides, the environment should be seen as a large interconnected system, rather than fragmented into smaller ecosystems here and there.

Landscape and development urbanism for sustainable future Working with the dynamics within the system, keeping open-ended opportunities and seeing the city as a living organism might be a useful approach connected to the understanding of landscape urbanism. Addressing all social classes and their needs, providing for inclusivity and planning according to available resources, follow the ideas of development urbanism.

Participatory planning & design as a tool to ensure inclusivity and equity

Planning for urban societies from below rather from a top- down approach. Joining the general public, planning and designing experts and decision making institutions in order to work responsibly for the future generations. Only a holistic type of planning can provide a resilient and safe environment where everyone feels welcome and included.

Practices of temporality with redevelopment and transformation approaches Transforming and redeveloping are increasingly favoured concepts, rather than constantly building new. Reuse of materials and life-cycle analysis might be useful tools, as well as planning for temporary uses. When the society and nature are in a constant state of change, only permanent solutions can not bring long term sustainability.

Green and blue infrastructure as a tool to adapt to climate change Cities have an opportunity to adapt to climate change by using green and blue infrastructure and connecting smaller and fragmented ecosystems into larger systems. Beneficial aspects include carbon sequestration, reducing urban heat island effect, protection against storm surges, comfortable microclimatic conditions and higher biodiversity, linking to a range of social benefits.

Urban acupuncture as an effective strategy The concept of urban acupuncture is getting increasingly favoured due to the nature of implementing urban projects. Small scale interventions in strategically selected public spaces can have a positive effect on surrounding environments and present opportunities for further developments. Understanding that public space is where social life unfolds should be high on the priority list.

Applying learnings from static and kinetic city Cities are made by people. Therefore, strong social divisions get reflected in the configurations of space. It is important to accept different conditions and learn from each other. Outcomes should be incorporated into city’s plans and visions, where even the lowest social classes should be recognized as actors in policy making.

Equal rights within climate adaptation policies and plans Climate change adaptation plans and policies should not cause gentrification and displacement. There is an opportunity to work with landscape tools that should be configured according to specific natural and social conditions. Landscape architecture has a power to span across disciplines and thus provide a multidisciplinary approach to climate policies.

Originating from indigineous practices and learning from the past Indigineous communities hold a wide span of sustainable practices. Integrating ancient tools of symbiotic relationship with nature can bridge the gap in contemporary adaptation and mitigation mechanisms. Applying learning from the past and leapfrogging towards a sustainable future can be a way forward.

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3

understanding The understanding is a chapter based on the ‘abstract’ question of why. Firstly, it explores sea level rise and related topics, since that is the starting point within a more scientific field. The research is made through a review of articles from various online journals. The second part moves to the case study - Mumbai, where spatial analysis is presented, supported by information obtained from the online discussions held with practitioners from Mumbai. Lastly, extracted understandings about configuration of Worli Koliwada as a specific site of further initiations are outlined.

- Sea level rise and coastal flooding - Coastal ecosystems - Sea level rise - Related risks - Disaster risk & vulnerability - Coastal resilience - Understanding Mumbai - Context - "Where really is the edge in Bombay?"

- Historical overview - Typography - Natural systems - Morphology - Sea level rise, 2050 projections - The outcome

- Worli Koliwada - Context - Connected to nature - Livelihoods - General mapping - Natural systems

Picture 10: Exposure towards the Arabian Sea and western cyclones, Carter Road, Mumbai

Sea level rise and coastal flooding The aim of this section is to explore and explain terminology, causes and interpretations of sea level rise. Further on it´s shown how cloastal flooding influences changes to natural and social systems. This is providing a general understanding of the problem and should give an example on how natural systems are interconnected on various levels of underground strata, influencing above ground conditions, as well as atmospheric spheres.

Coastal ecosystems Coastal ecosystems are highly productive areas, bounded by the ocean on one side. Those narrow regions generally range within 100 m of the high tide and can measure up to 300 m in elevation (Oppenheimer et al., 2019). The limit is determined by the effect of seawater on the substratum and plant rooting zone and other shoreline processes like inanduaton to salt water, coastal winds and brackish basal groundwater Formations also depend on different inland conditions and atmospheric activity can carry ecosystem processes further into the lowlying land zone. Coastal ecosystems are extremely dynamic collections of biological and physical systems, supported by interconnected and complex processes. They play an important role in the state of the global climate by sequestering CO2. By reviewing scientific literature, one can say that their carbon storage rates per unit area exceed those of terrestrial ecosystems, which makes them one of the most valuable natural typologies. For example, mangroves, salt marshes, and seagrasses combine to sequester a minimum of 136.000 tones of carbon into long-term storage annually (ibid.). Besides a role in the carbon cycle, those areas also perform as natural barriers from sea level rise and storm surges. They act as a first line of defence and have the capacity to uphold a great amount of water, preventing it from traveling up land and potentially endangering human settlements. In addition to adaptive capacity, they provide other ecosystem services.

According to Millenium Ecosystem Assessment (as cited in Ocean & Climate platform, no date) we can group them into:

Coastal ecosystems include areas such as mangroves, salt pans, muddy lowland zones, seagrass territories, coastal sand dunes, brackish wetlands and coral reefs. Characteristic common to all is their sensitivity to environmental conditions.

Any slight change to salinity, temperature, sediment load or nutrient availability might have a wide span of impacts. Human driven impacts increase the vulnerability of those zones.

Fragmentation, encroachment, reclamation and/or changes in land management impact alterations in spatial coverage and distribution of their services within the area and beyond.

Supporting local adaptation with natural ecosystems is too often compromised by capital driven human environment.

When natural zones are bulldozed and filled with concrete they lose their performative capacity and disturbe various cycles - below and above ground, life-, nutrient-, and intangible ones. Human can feel those as changes in water cycle, disappearance of diverse fauna and flora, shortages of resources and heavier impacts of extreme events to name a few.

- provisioning services: building materials, source of nutrition for human and animal species, wide range of species habitats - supporting services: life-cycle maintenance for both fauna and flora, nutrient and element cycles - regulating services: erosion prevention, waste-water treatment, moderation of extreme events - cultural services: human centered - tourism, recreation, spiritual benefits

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Sea level rise “Today’s flood is tomorrow’s high tide.”

- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Sea level rise is one of the most threatening impacts of global climate change. Level of the oceans at the end of the century will be higher than today and will continue to rise as these processes operate on the long term. Even if serious policies, such as Paris Agreement are followed and the global temperature slows or reverses, sea level rise will still continue as a trend (Nicholls, 2018). That is due to continuing deep ocean heat uptake and mass loss of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets (Oppenheimer et al., 2019). Presenting a major threat to some of the low-lying island communities and will in the future challenge most of the coastal regions. It is certain that sea level rise is not and won’t rise uniformly. It is a global threat, but it’s impacts will be experienced at the local level.

Hence understanding different terms and processes is an important aspect in understanding the circumstances and local adaptation measures.

If one tries to understand the problem generally, it could be simplified as following: increasing temperatures of the climate are directly dictating warmer sea water. Higher temperatures lead to lower density or so called thermal expansion, and therefore its mass volume per unit is larger. A thermal expansion per degree is dependent on the temperature itself, heat uptake by Earth’s warmest regions has a larger impact on sea level rise than the one by cold regions. This indicates regional variations in sea level, depending on spatial climate conditions. In addition, redistribution of water on the planet’s surface and elastic deformation of lithosphere accelerates changes in the rotations and gravitation of Earth. Thus, conditions of the solid state of the Earth as well contribute to regional differences, which might variate for about 30 percent.

What is common across all oceans is that water’s mass after the heat intake remains constant. Nearly 90 percent of increased atmospheric energy is stored in seas (Mooney, 2016).

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- Global means sea level Dominant sources of rising and accelerating global means sea level are melting glaciers of Greenland, contributions from melting Antarctic ice sheets and net loss in terrestrial water reservoirs. Since 1970 this is due to anthropogenic forces (Church and Gregory, 2019). Global means seal level will rise between 0.43m and 0.84m by 2100 relative to 1986 - 2005 according to IPCC predictions. Using another predictive model, the rate of sea level rise will be 15 mm per in 2100, and could exceed several cm per year in the 22nd century (ibid.). Therefore, according to that model, in 2300 one can expect a likely range of 2.3 - 5.4 m higher sea levels (ibid.).

- Relative sea level Relative sea level rise is defined as the change in the difference in elevation between land and sea at a specific location, in a specific time (Church and Gregory, 2019). Main local contributors are anthropogenic factors and changes in wave heights and intensity. The larger the emission scenarios, the larger are risks associated with sea level rise (ibid.). Responses are necessary to be local, and they reflect a relative sea level status of a specific location.

Related risks Risks related to sea level rise include a range of other coastal hazards, like coastal floodings, erosion, salinization of soil, ground and surface water, impeded drainage and extreme sea level events - short fluctuating events. Those risks are dynamic and increased by changes in infrastructure, agricultural patterns, land-use changes, resource exploitation and other anthropogenic factors.

- Extreme sea level events Extreme sea level events include high tides, storm surges with stronger winds and higher waves. Historically rare events (as an example 100-year events today) will become more regular by 2100. Many low lying regions will experience those annually by 2050 (Oppenheimer et al., 2019). Even though in the first half of the present century, differences in extreme sea level are small, it is important to acknowledge that anthropogenic drivers will continue to increase vulnerability of coastal communities. Already today, 100 million people and $4.7 trillion in assets are exposed to coastal floods (World Bank, 2020). Around 90 percent of urban development in the global south is near hazard-prone areas and made through unplanned urbanisation patterns (World Bank, 2020).

- Saltwater intrusion (salinitization) Salinization is an environmental phenomenon where chemical composition of solid and fluid elements is changed due to presence of sodium chloride. It’s degrading the quality of water supply, causing effects on agricultural production, loss of biodiversity and fertile soil, changing of microclimate, and as well creating health issues. Research suggests that it is one of the main drivers of soil degradation (Daliakopoulos et al., 2016). Risk associated with sea level rise is the intrusion of seawater into coastal aquifers and is expecting to be more

frequent and could enter further inland. It affects the quality of groundwater availability of potable one and changes in vegetation dynamics (Manivannan and Elango, 2019). The occurrence of saltwater at the bottom of aquifers is natural due to its higher density, but when groundwater level lies lower than the one of mean sea level the aquifer will be affected (Manivannan and Elango, 2019). That is further accelerated by excessive pumping of groundwater, since that is the major source of freshwater for many coastal regions.

- Erosion Coastal erosion means loss or displacement of land along the coastline due to wave, wind and tide actions. According to recent assessments, land loss is currently dominating over the land gain and is increasing all around the globe, but most notably in countries like Brasil, China, Colombia and India (Hinket et al., 2013). Without considering major adaptation scenarios, estimated 6.000 - 17.000 km2 of land could be lost during the 21st century (Hinket et al., 2013). That could lead to displacement of a large number of people and cause huge economic losses.

A combination of sea level rise, extreme sea level events and other coastal hazards on coastal ecosystems is representing a major threat to coastline communities and is increasing their vulnerability. That includes fractionation of habitats, loss of biodiversity, migration of species and whole ecosystems.

Communities will as well experience outbreaks of diseases like malaria, diarrhoea and leptospirosis, economic losses and downscale of tourism activities. Instability will affect rural and urban environments, developed and developing regions and all of the climatic zones. Vulnerability of those can be reduced by facilitating adaptation into planning. winds

glacier melting

Greenland Ice Sheet meltwater runoff

river runoff

Antartic Ice Sheet

calving currents surface melt

steric expansion subsidence

sedimentation & erosion

basalt melt

extreme sea level storm surge mean sea level

Sea level rise associated risks and causes, diagram

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Distaster risk & vulnerability

Coastal resilience

Understanding vulnerability and disaster risk are necessary parts of planning and should bring off adaptation policies and disaster risk management to developing plans. According to UNDRR - United Nations Office fo Disaster Risk Reduction (no date) disaster is defined as “a combination of exposure to hazard and conditions of vulnerability that are present for a community of society to cope with that event”. Further on, disaster risk could be described as the potential for a disaster to happen. Therefore, recognition of priorities connected to its reduction include: understanding the risk, strengthening of governance to manage it, investment into disaster risk reduction for resilience and enhancement of preparedness for effective response and for successful recovery, reconstruction and rehabilitation (UNDRR, no date). Considerations of economic and social conditions are as well important, since people don't necessarily share the same risk perceptions. The goal should be to achieve equitable levels of social and environmental well-being and the circumstances to build back a healthy quality of life.

“Coastal resilience is the capacity of the socioeconomic and natural systems in the coastal environment to cope with disturbances, induced by factors such as sea level rise, extreme events and human impacts, by adapting whilst maintaining their essential functions.”

- Masselink and Lazarus, 2019

Resilience in coastal human-environmental systems, threatened by increased risk of climate change related hazards requires a balanced coastal management. A resilient coast means that it has a better capacity to accommodate disturbances of natural and anthropogenic sources than the one with a limited capability to withstand internal changes. Although a great emphasis is given to ecosystem dynamics, it doesn't necessarily mean that a resilient coast is a stable one.

It should respond dynamically to local conditions in a specific point of time, therefore evaluating specific types of coasts as resilient might become problematic. It is in the hands of coastal management institutions to evaluate contemporary and predicted environmental and social components and increase the resilience of both (Masselink and Lazarus, 2019). A dynamic system may be hit by different types of disturbances, which consequently require different planning approaches.

Masselink and Lazarus suggest that a rigorous and science - informed type of planning which is implemented at appropriate temporal scale represent the most feasible adaptation tool where both natural and socio-economic resilience are ensured. That should help ensure a dynamic coastal landscape with favourable ecological conditions to sustain a healthy and safe environment for both human and non-human species.

How does one plan for socioeconomic and natural resilience in densely populated and ecologically degraded coastlines?

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Picture 11: Coastal resilience, for whom?

Mahim Bay, Mumbai © Minor Sights

18.949155

19.240819

Sanjay Gandhi National Park

Salsette Island

Arabian Sea

Navi Mumbai

Thane Creek

The Island City

Elephanta Island

Uran

2 km

72.776521

4 km

6 km

8 km

10 km

Mumbai, context map

73.124461

Understanding Mumbai The aim of this section is to systematically analyse and evaluate historical and existing conditions which have and are influencing spatial conditions of the city. Themes and topics which are anyhow connected to or have some kind of influence on the issue of sea level rise are taken into account. Mapping was used as a tool to understand the logics of the system and as a first step towards the ´transformation´of the territory is additionally supported with conversations, conducted online, with residents of Mumbai. In this regard, top down approach of analysing is backed with “bottom up” or local understanding of the context.

Context Mumbai is a megacity, located on the western coast of Indian subcontinent. It is the capital city of the state of Maharashtra, as well as financial and commercial center of the country (Wikipedia, 2021c). According to the United Nations study (2018), it is the seventh most populous city in the world with population growing by approximately 1,15 % per year (Macro Trends, 2021). Typologically wise, the city is shaped on a narrow peninsula, referred to as the Island City. The suburban area occupies a large part of Salsette Island, with the Sanjay Gandhi National Park stretching out to 87 km2 (Wikipedia, 2021d). The park is a protected forested area and is one of the most visited parks in the world (Wikipedia, 2021d). Towards the west, Mumbai is facing Arabain Sea, towards the east is bordering the mountain range Western Ghats. The Ghats are a mountain chain, parallel to the Indian coast and transverse five national states. They are UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the eight biodiversity hotspots of the world, where at least 325 globally threatened species can be found (WWF, 2020).

Geographical location of the city determines a tropical climate with temperatures not fluctuating much throughout the year (Wikipedia, 2021e). Climate is characterized by a high level of humidity, with dry periods from October to May and dry ones with a peak in July. The wet period is dominated by the monsoon coming in from the south-west with average monthly rainfall of 516 mm (Wikipedia, 2021e). The average annual temperature is 27°C, while humidity usually variates between 70 - 80 % (Wikipedia, 2021e).

The city of Mumbai is one of the most densely populated cities in the world (Macro Trends, 2021). Efforts to decentralize the Island City are following urbanisation patterns extending towards the east. The process is aiming to follow development plans drawn by Charles Correra, Pravina Mehta and Shirish Patel in 1964 with the establishment of Navi Mumbai as the new polycentric structure (Jain, 2013). A part of the aim of decentralisation is to destress traffic congestions of the city.

Main connectivity corridors are following north-south orientation, with two lines of the suburban train systems as the lifelines and backbones of the city.

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Mumbai

Impressions from the city

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"Where really is the edge of Bombay?!"

"There is no such thing as dry land. Wetness is everywhere to some degree. It is in the seas, clouds, rains, dew, air, soils, minerals, plants, animals. The sea is very wet; the desert less so.

So, when we experience ‘water’ on the other side of a line that allegedly separates it from ‘land’, we know it to be by design, design that articulates a surface for habitation. This surface has served as a ground for experience, understanding and knowledge. Today, however, with rising seas, warming temperatures, and the increasing frequency of floods, this surface along with the edifice of civilization and certainty built upon it is threatened, calling into question the act of separation that brought it into being."

- Ocean of Wetness, A platform for Design, Mathur, A., and da Cunha, D. (no date)

Perceiving land and water as two separated landscape entities is engraved into people’s thinking of the coastline. It originates from colonial practices of occupation and today defines a concept of a borderline. Thinking of a coastline as a line has influenced questions of ownerships, property lines and dominations. It seems as if land is in control of water, water being constantly subordinated and controlled. The separation of land and water in an uncertain epoch has to be rethought.

If practices in the threshold zone want to be successful, they should perhaps switch the perspective.

As Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha in their project SOAK - Mumbai in an Estuary, suggest, one might want to think of Mumbai not solely as an ísland city´ but rather an ‘estuary’ and further as an estuary in the monsoon (Mathur and de Cunha, 2009). Mumbai is therefore in fact a sea itself, an inhabited sea and thus a question of how to live in design in a constant wetness arises (Mathur and de Cunha, 2009).

edge - a boundary, defining the ownership and control of space

Existing condition

What if...?

Change of perception - water and land as connected and interlocked entities How to map, draw and visualize?

How to blur the edges?

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What if one would read wetness as omnipresent element consisting of different impulses?

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What if one would understand wetness only as omnipresent composition of varied saturations ?

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Historical overview Mumbai has been built on and with relations made through water (Anand, 2017). Strategic location on the edge of Western Ghats and swampy landscapes along the western coastline of Indian plateau has played an important role in the development of this global city. Dependence on natural condi-

tions and provision of natural resources have proven to be the drivers of development periods, where a combination rapid expansions and fast urban declines brought the city into today’s shape.

Evidence suggests that the areas around today’s Mumbai were inhabited since the Stone Age, and that they might have been a part of trade networks between Egypt and Persia around 1000 BC. Amphibious ground was inhabited by small fishing villages of the Koli community, as the first known inhabitants of those lands. The temporary mixture of land and water has never been of much interest to either the rulers of the Sultanate in Gujarat or to the Maharathas, rulers of the south (Goa). The land was ceded to the Portugese in 1534 and they established a trading port. More than a century later, in 1661, the city came to the hands of the British. In a gesture of imperial arrogance, Bombay was gifted to commemorate the wedding between portugese princess Cathrine of Braganza and Charles II (Encyclopædia Britannica, no date).

with causeways in order to make the land into one single spatial unit (Anand, 2017). By 1708 the city became a center of the East India Company, which was originally formed as a monopolistic trading body for the exploitation of trade with South East Asia and India and has later become an “agent of British imperialism” (Encyclopaedia Britannica, no date). Although it appears as the city was developed through steady progress, it was characterized by periods of population decline, due to fires, plagues and occasional threats of invasions.

A shift towards industrialization changed the governance of the city into more centralized political bodies, which tried to make Bombay a center of commerce in Arabian Sea and thus the main trading port on the western fringes of India. The city came to be a profitable node through the opium trade with China and was involved into a slave trading network within the Indian and Atlantic oceans. Conditions to grow cotton in the hinterlands of what is today Mumbai, have contributed heavily towards the industrial boom. Cotton textiles were traded by the officials for slaves in West Africa to provide a workforce for sugar plantations in the Carribean. The profits made through maritime trade were put into setting up cloth mills on the eastern coastline of the city, drawing a large number of workers to the province (ibid.).

Pre - colonial period

Colonial period

At first the settlement appeared unfavourable, with hot and humid climate, heavy monsoon rains, and low lying mangrove forests and mashlands. But the strategic location has offered a possibility for the British to expand their presence in Arabian Sea. After years of difficult discussions with the Portugese on the confusion of where the land really begins, the English concield their claims to the city by connecting seven islands →

Fishing communities scattered around the swampy landscapes ( 16th Century)

Birth of the city (

→ 18th Century)

Sion

Dharavi

Wadala Mahim

Worli

Dadar

Parel

Mazgaon

Byculla

Malabar Hill Dongri

Colaba

map not in scale Source of infromation: SOAK, 2009 - Mathur and da Cunha

17th century

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Original islands Data Source: SOAK, Mumbai in estuary, Mathur & da Cunha, 2009 Pre - colonial period

map not in scale Source of infromation: SOAK, 2009 - Mathur and da Cunha

18th century

Start of land reclamations Reclamied under Bristish rule Colonial period

Pre - independence period

Post - independence period

Profits from the cotton mills industry in the late nineteenth century were interrupted by the Civil War in the United States, a crucial shift that had a significant impact on Mumbai’s fortunes. Opening of the Suez Canal in the same period exacembrated the demand for goods and strengthened the exchange between India and Britain. That has resulted in rapid expansion of the city, large scale infrastructure and an overall shift towards the modernity (Verrijzer, 2020). Influx of workers have contributed to the urban boom, and have also made a city one of the most important industrial centers in that part of the world, a status which city’s still proudly wears. Political movements for independence have gained their influence and India has become an independent country in 1947 (Encyclopædia Britannica, no date).

Gained independence has had a notable influence on the expansion of the city. A significant number of refugees from newly created Pakistan fled to Maharashtra and Mumbai itself, which in 1950 merged with the suburbs into a Greater Bombay District (Verrijzer, 2020). In the post independence era, growing population has thus expanded city limits even more, in 1994 Charles Correa presented a new development vision to Navi Mumbai (Jain, 2013). Many government offices and corporate institutions along with residential districts have been built on the opposite site of Thane Creek. Although the cotton mills industry declined, Mumbai still lays on its gains and inheritance. Today being a financial, commercial and the entertainment capital of the country (Wikipedia, 2021c) it doesn’t show signs of slowing down its urban expansion.

Towards the modernity ( → 20th Century)

Emergance of the mega city (

→ 21th Century)

Sewre Mazgaon

Mazgaon Docks

Princess Docks

Victoria Docks Marine Drive

Ballard Pier

map not in scale Source of infromation: SOAK, 2009 - Mathur and da Cunha

20th century

Major land reclamations Reclamied under Bristish rule Pre - independance period

map not in scale Source of infromation: SOAK, 2009 - Mathur and da Cunha

21st century

Present land Mainly reclaimed in period 1900 until 1947 Post - independance period

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Typography Typographic system of Mumbai is predominantly flat, due to historical reclamation processes. Traces of seven original islands can be found by studying elevation sections of the Is-

land City. The highest point of Salsette island is located in Sanjay Gandhi National Park at 468m above the sea level (Treks and Trails, 2021).

2 km

4 km

6 km

8 km

10 km

Typography, map

Source of infromation: Scalgo Global

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Natural systems Natural system of Mumbai is characterized by fragmentation.

Largest systems include coastal landscape typologies, such as mangroves, salt flats and mudd lands. Besides, forest typologies of south indian moist deciduous and semi evergreen

forests are dominant at SG National Park (Indian Wildlife Resorts, 2021). In the cityscape one might find solitary open green areas, with lawn as the main typology.

Muddy shorline Rocky shorline Sandy shorline Forest Coastal vegetation Other open space

2 km

4 km

6 km

8 km

10 km

Natural system, map

Source of infromation: Marine Life of Mumbai

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Mumbai's coastal inhabitants

© Intertidal Living, Inhabited Sea

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Muddy coastal habitats Muddy shorelines are the type of habitat found mainly on the eastern side of Salsette Island along the Thana Creek, as well as along Maland and Manori Creek. Those are the mudflat areas where the river empties into the sea and leaves behind a rich sediment base. A mixture of silt and organic matter is carried from the inland and results in clayey and nutrient rich soil (Jalambad and Naik, 2021). Those areas rank high in biodiversity and present a unique ecosystem with important ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration, storm

surge barrier and habitat provision. These areas present a source of livelihoods to Koli fishing communities, as they inhabit a range of crabs and small fishes. At the same time, large mangrove areas might block fisherman's access to the sea and are therefore often perceived as areas of conflicting interests.

A large mangrove area along the Thana Creek is being protected, due to it’s important climate adaptation capacity.

Terrestial zone

Landward zone

Midzone

Seaward zone

High tide Low tide

Key species - Telescopium telescopium - Episesarma versicolor - Periophthalmus barbarus - Bakawan rotundata -Crustose Coralline Algae

- Sonneratia alba - Avicennia marina

- Mugil cephalus

Muddy shorline, section Source of infromation: Marine Life of Mumbai , iNaturalist

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Rocky coastal habitats Rocky shorelines are the most common habitat type located on the western banks of the city. They often lie right next to the sandy ones, and are best revealed at the low tide. Many times they are regarded as seaside wastelands (Jalambad and Naik, 2021) and thus built upon, encroached and polluted.

Rocky shores are biologically rich environments and ‘natural laboratories’ to study life in the intertidal zone (Wikipedia, 2020). The importance of those areas are getting recognized and are celebrated by Mumbaikars, who might enjoy an evening adventure in the intertidal zones, especially popular areas are around Haji Ali mosque.

Sublittoral zone

Littoral (intertidal) zone

Supralittoral zone

High tide Low tide

Key species - Aquilonastra anomala - Gymnothorax pseudothyrsoideus

- Palythoa mutuki - Porpita porpita - Elysia hirasei - Cratena pawarshindeorum

- Planaxis sulcatus

Rocky shorline, section Source of infromation: Marine Life of Mumbai , iNaturalist

Sandy coastal habitats Sandy seashores are the most popular landscape typology in Mumbai, with sandy beaches being areas of social interactions. Sports, sightseeing and relaxing are some of the beach activities happening at the most popular Juhu and Mahin beaches on the western shore of Mumbai. Besides human activity, there are hidden inhabitants of the sandy habitat, like crabs, snails and clams. Unfortunately constant movement of water reveals human contribution to the intertidal zone, as large amounts of trash get accumulated on Mumbai’s shorelines on a daily basis (White et al, 2021).

Sublittoral zone

Littoral (intertidal) zone

Supralittoral zone

High tide Low tide

Key species - Brevitrygon walga

- Genus Ilyoplax - Volegalea cochlidium - Ocypode ceratophthalmus - Paracondylactis sinensis

- Ipomoea pes-caprae

Sandy shorline, section Source of infromation: Marine Life of Mumbai , iNaturalist

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Tidal movement Tides are the rise and fall of the water levels and are caused by the gravitational forces of the moon and the sun (NOAA, 2021). Those long-period waves originate in the ocean and progress towards the shoreline, where they are perceived as the regular rise and fall of the sea level (NOAA, 2021). Due to the Earth’s rotation, two high and two low tides occur every day, with an app. 12 hours and 25 minutes difference between two high tides (DM, 2017).

Tidal movement of Mumbai is generally strong. The difference from the low and the high tide ranges from 4.5 and up to 5 meters of height difference.

height (m) 6.0

There are two types of tides happening in Mumbai (DM, 2017):

- Spring tide; happens when the sun and the moon are aligned and thus causes very high and very low rides. Indifferent from the term, those tides occur during the full moon and the new moon.

- Neap tide; happens when gravitational pull from the sun and the moon are perpendicular to each other. Those tides are weak and occur during quarter moons.

12:59 h

0:11 h

5.0

4.3

4.5 2.5

1.1 0.0

0.8

6:22 h

min height -0.2 m

-1.0

0h

2h

18:59 h

4h

6h

8h

10 h

12 h

14 h

16 h

18 h

20 h

22 h

0h

Tidal movements, graph Source of infromation: Intertidal Living, Inhabited Sea

Picture 12: Intertidal zone along the western shorline, Nepean Sea Road, Mumbai © Intertidal Living, Inhabited Sea

Morphology Mumbai’s urban fabric is characterized by the diverse demographic influence either being from the colonisation period or from the post-independence times with the influx of migrant workers Mumbai. That pushed the city's organic urbanisation patterns as the first official development plan was adopted only in the year 1991 (Economic Times, 2018). Composition of urban blocks is best described from the viewpoint of the constructing period. For example, dominant urban patterns in the south of Mumbai follow characteristics of the British Victorian Era with larger open avenues and landmark buildings.

Another dominant pattern of the city is occupying the eastern waterfront, populated by large rectangular urban blocks, like cotton mills and industrial warehouses.

In 2001, Census of India identified 1.959 slum settlements in the Greater Mumbai region. That accounted for 6.25 million people, or 54 & of the total population of the city. The western Morphological patterns

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suburbs housed the highest population, whereas the Island City concentrated “only” 17 % (Risbud, 2003). Dharavi is one of the biggest slums in Asia, with estimated over a million inhabitants (Wikipedia, 2021).

- Slum; households, mainly as structures built without permission, recognition and state approval, on property that belonged to someone else (Anand, 2019). Often defined by the effects of poverty, unsanitary conditions, overcrowdedness, limited or completely denied access to basic services and unsafe and unhealthy (UN Habitat, 2021).

- Urban village; ancestral habitation types, developed incrementally. Dense but mostly low-rise, accommodating both residential and economic activities (Rahul, 2018).

Infromal settlement, urban villages

1,5 km

3 km

City's morphology, map

Source information: Google Earth, Ambika (2019)

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Sea level rise, 2050 projections As described in Chapter 3 - Understanding Sea level rise, some projections imply 1 - 2m rise of the sea level by the end of this century (Church and Gregory, 2019). Due to the specific spatial configuration, some areas of Mumbai are already today below the high tide line and the city is flooded annually by monsoon rains (Choundhar, 2019). City’s drainage infrastructure was set in the 1900s with a maximum throughput of 25 mm per hour, highly insufficient for heavy rainfalls in today’s climate unstable era, where downpours are reaching up to 993 mm in 24 hours (Mulhern, 2020).

Various sea level rise projections and models are available nowadays. All imply an urgent response from the local civil bodies. The model used to illustrate flooding scenario in 2050 (presented in the map on the following page) is described below (accessed at: https://coastal.climatecentral.org/) - Flooding projection: combines sea level rise projection (Kopp et al.) and height of the local annual flood (Muis et al.)

- Luck: medium scenario - heat-trapping pollution and global warming having a mild effect on the sea levels than scientific projections

- Pollution scenario: unchecked pollution, following Mumbai’s current pollution trend - consistent rise of emitting greenhouse gasses.

Sea level rise projection source: Kopp et al. (2014) - built on average global projections, from IPCC 5th Assessment Report, 2014. It estimates sea level rise mainly due to thermal expansion and ice melt, and it projects a range from 0.5m to 1.2m higher sea levels, based on various pathways defined by IPCC.

Projected flooding scenario for the year 2050 might have a tremendous effect on Mumbaikars. Despite scientific models, precise calculations on how many people in Mumbai might be directly and indirectly affected are scarce. The matrix presented down below tries to show the number of people facing direct impacts of sea level rise, and thus potential forced relocation. It is a combination of sources provided by the study by Pramanik (2017) on land areas loss due to the sea level rise, combined by average density and population from common sources.

based on a study; Pramanik, 2017

based on an average density; 32.303/km2 (Wikipedia, 2021a)

Sea level rise projection

Loss of urban areas

based on estimated population; 19.478.709 (Census Inida, 2011)

Directly impacted people

% 1m

25,32 km2

817.912

4,2%

2m

41,64 km2

1.345.097

6,9%

3m

54,61 km2

1.764.067

9,1%

4m

78,86 km2

2.547.415

13,1%

Imagine: avg. density in Dharavi (infromal settlement; likely to be flooded): 277.136 km2 (Wikipedia, 2021f)

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If one speculates that all coastal areas are densly populated

1m projection

7.017.085

36,0%

Sea level rise projection + annual flood, 2050 Urbanized area

2 km

4 km

6 km

8 km

10 km

Sea level rise 2050, map

Source of information: https://coastal.climatecentral.org/

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The outcome Analytical part of the project presented until now leans on spatial analysis as well as on information obtained from the interviews held with practitioners in Mumbai (see Chapter 1 - the journey).

One can conclude that the most vulnerable to the flooding and to the potential threat of sea level rise are the city's most marginalized groups of society - informal settlements and urban villages. It is the communities which occupy areas in the coastal zones, right on the line of current strong division between land and water - coastal edge. According to Chattterjee (2010) existing flood mitigation strategies of the city don’t reduce risks of the city’s most vulnerable people. Quite the opposite, slum dwellers often receive the consequences of mitigation measures, like displacement to make room for larger structural changes to improve infrastructure objects for benefits of the ‘formal’ society (Chatterjee, 2010). The problem is part of a larger urban discourse and an urgent systematic change.

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Therefore, the outcome of the analysis maps out coastal informal villages and urban settlement, presented in the following diagrammatic map. The project sees them as the frontline of defence against sea induced disasters. According to the information received from Latitha Kamath, Sai Joshi and Rohit Mujumdar, coastal communities are in a fight with water. Inhabitants are trying to protect themselves from the moments of wetness.

What if one would switch this around and rather strive for a coexistence with water?

Urban village Infromal settlement

2 km

4 km

6 km

8 km

10 km

Analysis outcome, map

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Picture 13: Mumbai's skyline at Mahim Bay, a contemporary blend of urban life

Worli Koliwada

1,5 km

3 km

Worli Koliwada, location map

Worli Koliwada Site of initiations Showcase scenarios

Following pages aim to analyse and present a fishing village, Worli Koliwada. The site has been chosen according to the precondition to work with marginalized groups that are the most vulnerable to the risks of climate change, specifically to the sea level rise and other ocean induced disasters, such as storm surge. Worli Koliwada occupies a specific land in the existing ocean of wetness.

Context Koliwada - a home that opens up to the sea (Chakrabarty, 2016) is a term used to describe a spatial configuration of Koli’s (fishing community) habitation. A village-like urban pattern is a space of both residential and economic activities, as their notion of home spans across land, sea and mangroves and blurs the boundaries between work and residence (Kamath, Dubey, 2021).

Koli are the indigineous communities of Mumbai, who survived in the city for over 500 years (Schapova, 2019). In fact, many of the settlements are blended into the existing urban tissue of today’s fast paced environment. Within it, fisherfolk communities have been systematically and spatially squeezed by surrounding urban developments, disconnecting them from their indigineous way of living (Kamath and Dubey, 2020). Besides infrastructure developments, pollution, privatization and securitization are other most pressing issues on coastal Koli communities.

One out of many such villages is Worli Koliwada, located at the Worli tip. The village occupies one out of seven original islands, Worli. It is connected to the Arabian Sea on the western side and Mahim Bay on the eastern side. BandraWorli Sea link, one of the city's most important and heavily used bridge connections, is crossing the most northern part of the village.

Population

Demographics

estimated 30.000 inhabitants (CEPT, 2017)

20% of Koli descent remains (CEPT, 2017)

Density

Area

457 dwellings, + supporting structures (Arch Out Loud, 2017)

263.046 m2 (Arch Out Loud, 2017)

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Connection to nature

Livelihoods

Indigineous communities, such as Koli, have traditionally claimed a deep understanding and connection with nature (CEPT, 2017). The respect for nature and deep understanding of natural cycles became embedded in the way of life, celebrations, beliefs and all together connected them into a sustainable unit (ibid.). Mumbai’s fisherfolk possess a strong connection and dependence on lunar cycle, due to its effect on tidal movement. Naarli Purnima, a festival celebrated on the first full moon day of the Hindu month Shravan (usually in August) is one of the most important days for the Koli community, as it marks the beginning of the fishing season (Kamath, Dupal, 2021). Besides it, many other high-spirited celebrations are strongly based on seasonal and geographic specificies (CEPT, 2021). The strong connection to nature influenced the sensitivity towards a healthy existence of surrounding natural environments. Recently, with the process of globalisation and urbanisation, the connection stands on the crossroad.

Declining fishing activity is caught amidst rapidly degrading natural conditions due to pollution and large infrastructure in the surrounding seas (Kamath, Dupal, 2020). Besides, the advent of technology has challenged traditional practices and set back Kolis due to lack of affordable access (CEPT, 2017).

The result of additional large scale stakeholder actors is resulting in low economic returns and is thus loosening the fishing spirit in Worli Koliwada. Other economic activities in Koliwada are located along the villages’ main roads and constitute of occupations within small scale industry, services, street vending, trading and profession sector (ibid).

profession

19%

36% trading

14%

small scale industry

14%

street vending

17% services

Livelihoods, diagram Source of information: CEPT, 2017

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Activities on the intersection of different spheres, collage

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Impressions of daily life in Worli Koliwada

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Picture 14: Fishing is a group activity © Minor Sights

Picture 15: Fishing related tasks are devided between sexes, fish drying © Minor Sights

Picture 16: Life of the village unfolds on the streets © Minor Sights

Picture 17: Local temples - public spaces of social interactions © Minor Sights

Impressions of edge conditions in Worli Koliwada

Picture 18 © Urbz

Picture 19 © Rudolph Andrew Furtado

Picture 21 © Arch Out Loud

Picture 20 © Craig Boehman

Picture 22 © Hemant Padalkar

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General mapping Worli Koliwada is a densely populated coastal settlement, with two arterial roads. The site is most densely populated along the eastern and western shores, with open areas in the north towards the tip, where most fishing activities take place. On both of the sides, the edge is inhabited with residential houses right until the threshold. Open areas are often neglected and equipped with poor urban inventory. Main activity nodes are around local temples and sacred places, as well as around the fishing market in the center of the village. Fish drying area in the north is a place of common activities, like playing, celebrations, fish drying, daily repair of fishing equipment and general socializing. Within the fishing drying commons, Worli Fort stands as a remembrance of colonization times. Although neglected and surrounded by trash it presents a potential to activate it as a heritage point. Koliwada is well connected with the city with public transport, but it lacks better integration of urban and social tissue. (CEPT, 2017)

Picture 23: Historical Worli fort and neglected public space in front, Worli Koliwada © Minor Sights

Picture 24: Fishing and repairs are primarily man's activities, Worli Koliwada © Vidya Subramanian

Fishing activities

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Arabian Sea

Mahim Bay

Worli jetty

Fish drying area

A

A

Worli fort D

Worli - Bandra Sea Link

B B

E

D E

New jetty C

C

Shallow sandy waters

Fish market

Shallow rocky waters

Cleveland Docks

F

Fish drying area

F

100 m

200 m

300 m

400 m

500 m

Worli Koliwada, general maping

Worli fort

Section AA

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Local temple

Fishing activities

New jetty

Neglected open space

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Section BB

Section CC

Local temple

Section DD

Fishing market

Multipurpose area

Section EE

Cleveland Dock

Section FF

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4

interpretation The interpretation is touching the ‘abstract’ question of how; how to approach the research questions and themes presented earlier. It consists of a strategic framework, which works with examinations of tools to adapt to the sea level rise. Tools include more imaginative ones, as well as concrete examples and reference projects. Finally, the following sections present a proposal, which answers set questions and follows the overall project aim. It works across scales, and provides a coherent approach.

- Strategic framework - Utopian future - Adaptation practices against sea level rise - Reference projects - Evaluation matrix - Strategic toolbox - Urban complexity - Coastal acupuncture - Thresholds of opportunities - Toolbox strategies - Strategic timeline - Strategies elaborations - Initiations; showcasing scenarios - Strategies through local experiences

Utopian Mumbai, collage

Strategic framework This section aims to frame the project with outlining tools and methods relevant as a pathway towards a desired condition. State of the art methods for protection are adopted and further on visualise utopian future for the city of Mumbai in order to imagine a catastrophe. Besides that, findings from literature and relevant projects are evaluated as possible landscape interventions.

Utopian future How do human beings prepare for a rare event, or a catastrophe? Are we even able to imagine it?

Some argue that utopianism is vital for the enhancement of human condition (Wikipedia, 2021g). Strategic framework is drawing on utopian imaginations of Mumbai submerged in the sea. The aim is to visualize the future, maybe a utopian one - utopian future. This way, utopia is taken as a tool to improve human condition via propelling individual imagination of a disaster, only being solved by collective actions. Scenarios are following methods of protections from sea level rise, developed by Rasmus Hjortshøj, danish architect, photographes, and a PhD-Fellow (COAST, no date).

"A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias."

- Oscar Wilde

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Abandonment “To minimize a threat completely you can just stay away from it. By using abandonment as a preemptive measure, you minimize the impact but you also have to give something up. But what if abandonment was not seen as a failure by giving up, by as a way of reusing functions or infrastructure that most certainly will be rendered useless in their current form.”

- COAST, no date

Gateway of India, Utopian vision

Shielding “Do you shield a city or a building completely thereby building a wall around yourself?... But you have to take into consideration that some things once they go, they will never come back.

Like the old city fabric in a city – you might have to protect it if it serves the needs of everyone around it.”

- COAST, no date

Haji Ali, Utopian vision

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Transformation “The most true form of adaptation. You go with the flow and adapt in accordance to challenges posed. You develop new building techniques and new zoning laws to not just cope with a slow moving threat over time but to turn it into an asset.”

- COAST, no date

Colaga causeway, Utopian vision

Relocation “Why so static? Some things we need to keep but we don’t need to shield them in their current place or configuration. We can move structures or just certain programs within structures and thereby maintain efficiency and at the same time open for alternative usage of the current configuration...Who says that everything has to stay forever?”

- COAST, no date

The Asiatic Society of Mumbai Town Hall, Utopian vision

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Adaptation practices against sea level rise “Building a culture of prevention is not easy. While the costs of prevention have to be paid in the present, its benefits lie in a distant future. Moreover, the benefits are not tangible; they are the disasters that did not happen.”

- Kofi Annau, 1999

It is important for resilient development to combine adaptation actions and mitigation efforts to reduce impacts of coastal floodings and associated risks, in order to meet the UN sustainable development goals.

Effective responses and adaptation measures need to be site specific, addressing vulnerability of local habitats and environments (Church and Gregory, 2019). Determining a timeframe of taken initiatives requires indepth knowledge of imposed hazards, but might best be undertaken with a long term vision. Solutions need to cover uncertainties of sea levels, and need to provide a response to natural conditions.

Choosing the right interventions is further challenged by a lack of resources, conservation, economic development and power relations of investors (IPCC, 2014). Experts working with UN strategies towards sea level rise suggest that, using locally appropriate combination of decision analysis, land-use management and participatory planning can help to address institution driven challenges faced in responding to sea level rise Church and Gregory, 2019).

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the United Nations body for assessments of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for mitigation and adaptation. According to their latest report on sea level rise, adaptation methods such as protection, accomodation, advance, retreat and ecosystem-based adaptation all play an important role in an integrated and sequenced response to sea level rise (IPCC, 2014).

- Accommodation Accommodation is a response to sea level rise, which includes govrnmental or institutional and biophysical factors.

It reduces the vulnerability of inhabitants, human activities, ecosystems and build environment by early warning systems for extreme events, by flood-proofing buildings for the inticipated future events, increasing insurances and changing land use laws. It allows habitability of coastal zones despite higher levels of danger, thus being an important measure in anthropogenic coastal zones. (Oppenheimer et al., 2019).

- Retreat Retreat is the most radical response to sea level rise as it means permanently moving people, properties and human activities to safer zones, out of the coastal area. It is socially, culturally and politically challenging but might be inevitable in high risk areas. It requires a lot of coordination, and ca resulte in class separation and other socially driven issues. Therefore retreat needs to be executed carefully with a participatory of imapcted residents or community. It includes the following forms: migration (voluntary, at least for a year), displacement (involuntary and unforeseen), relocation (managed retreat of smaller communities). (Oppenheimer et al., 2019).

- Advance Advance means creating new land by building seawards, reclaiming the land above sea level or planting vegetation with specific intention to support natural creation of land. It is reducing coastal risks for the hinterland and newly elevated land. (Oppenheimer et al., 2019).

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- Protection Protection reduces coastal risks and impacts by blocking the inland areas from mean and extreme sea level events. That may be done through hard protection measures such as dikes, seawalls, storm surge barriers, representing grey types of engineering types of protective infrastructure. They are widespread protective options and are already providing a predictable level of safety in North West Europe, predominantly in the Netherlands, as well as in East Asia, mainly in China, but also in other coastal cities around the globe. It might be an attractive solution in the short term but it’s proven that technical limits to it will increase under high emission scenarios (Oppenheimer et al., 2019). Alterations of hydrodynamic and morphodynamic patterns due to hard protective infrastructures may influence flooding and erosion in downdrift areas (Masselink and Gehrels, 2015, as cited in Oppenheimer et al., 2019). Drawbacks include as well changed migrations of ecosystems, leading to loss of habitats and performance of ecosystems (Oppenheimer et al., 2019). The urban development might intensify behind constantly higher and higher defences, which escalates severe consequences in case if the protection fails. With scarcity of resources, cemented sea walls don't seem like the most sustainable solution.

Ecosystem-based adaptation is an emerging concept worldwide. It is providing multiple co-benefits where sufficient space is available, it means sustainable management, restoration and conservation of coastline ecosystems (Van Wesenbeeck et al., 2017, as cited in Masselink and Lazarus, 2019).

There, hydrology is being used as a form with which addressing flood risks, tidal fluctuations and seasonal changes and is translated into design proposals. Those kinds of adaptation principles provide softer transitions between land and water and thus they accommodate temporary wet and dry transition zones. Those, usually ecologically rich zones, perform as resilient coastlines - mangroves, salt marshes, mud flats, wetlands, oyster and coral reefs. Major protection benefits include wave attenuation, shoreline stabilization and trapping of sediment which means accumulation of organic material acting as a protective barrier. It means that ecosystem based adaptation measures act as protections and advanced approaches. It has been studied that those ecosystems together reduce wave heights between 35 - 71 percent (Narayan et al., 2016, as cited in Wilson, 2016). A multifunctional strategy is required in order to successfully develop them as green and blue infrastructure with multiple benefits.

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Barrier islands are landforms which tend to maintain their height and cross-shore width but are extending landward over time (Oppenheimer et al., 2019). They have an ability to respond to short-term events, in which sediments get overwashed to the back barrier which sustains their morphology.

They are characterized by high sustainability, as they have a power to constantly reinvent, recycle themselves, making them one of the most resilient protection measures (Masselink and Lazarus, 2019). Barrier islands require constant flow of sediments in order to perform well against sea level rise and storm surge events. Especially gravel barriers are resilient to both pulsating and constant disturbances (ibid.).

Those kinds of landforms show no vulnerability to sea level rise (Mckee and Vervaeke, 2018, as cited in Oppenheimer et al., 2019).

Coastal dunes and beaches are another type of landscape based adaptation typologies. They grow as a result of an exchange between marine and arolian forces, and through a feedback between vegetation and sediment transport, in which shallow burial promotes plant growth that enhances further sediment disposition (Psuty and Lubke, 2008).

Picture 25 © Self-Assembly Lab

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Reference projects

- Growing Islands, Maldives, MIT Self-Assembly Lab - Rebuilding Beaches and Protecting Coastlines Through Wave Energy

MIT’s Self Assembly Lab and Maldivian organisation Ivena are creating a system of underwater structures which use wave energy in order to accumulate sand in specific locations. The project uses forces of nature, which through an extended period of time influence accumulation of sand that grows into island barriers and provide protection from sea level rise.

Submersible devices have a capacity to act as well as artificial reefs and can be changed according to seasonal requirements.

That approach aims to reshape and sand topographies in a sustainable manner. Natural habitats are left untouched and have, due to slow accumulation of sand, time to adapt to new conditions. (Self-Assembly Lab, no date) - In-Situ Network, Kiribati, Ana Abram and Maj Plemenitas Palm tree branches for coastal resilience

Ana Abram and Maj Plemenitas have developed a project, which is weaving together generative design, nature forces and locally sourced materiality. Kiribati is a small island nation, extremely susceptible to coastal erosion and sea level rise. A simple measure, palm tree branches are used as an adaptation strategy towards rising seas. Concave shaped branches are inserted into the sand and are due to slower water flows influencing deposition of sand into the inner surface of the leaf. Created sand mounds are gradually elevating coastal embankments and allowing native aquatic plants to grow and therefore protect the beach. The project provides a simple measure, a minimal input for a maximal output. (LafargeHolcim Foundation, 2014)

Picture 26 © Maj Plemenitas

Tidal wetlands, such as salt marshes and mangroves are sustained by interaction between vegetation and sedimentation. Vegetation found in those landscape systems slows down velocity and causes deposition of sediments, which plants trap in place. Delivery of nutrients promotes growth of organic materials, stabilizing on ground materiality and increasing platform elevation (Fredrichs and Pery, 2001).

Both marshes and mangroves have been proven to be able to keep pace with fast rates of sea level rise (Oppenheimer et al., 2019). Salt marshes have a capacity to withstand extreme events without collapsing (Leonardi et al., 2018). Similar goes for mangroves, which are with their capacity towards high tidal waves, tsunamis, mean sea level put at the front line of nature based solutions to mitigate coastal hazards (Oppenheimer et al., 2019).

Reference projects

- CALTROPe, Szövetség’39

CALTROPe project works on a similar principle. Hungarian design studio introduced a modular structure that cultivates mangroves. The structure is made from a combination of concrete and organic material, that would dissolve through time and become a part of a sediment. These lace-like structures would be able to catch sediments and work like a catalyst for a positive change at the crucial shorelines. They as well wish to incorporate local communities into planning and construction. (Frearson, 2013).

- TeraPOT, Sheng-Hung Lee and Wan Kee Lee

It’s a green alternative to concrete coastal protections. A joint Taiwanese and Malasian collaboration resulted in creation of giant plant pots, a hybrid version between artificial coastal defences and natural mangrove forests. Concrete shell protects a compostable container with pre-seeded mangrove plant. As they grow, they are hoping to create an interlocking barrier made from roots, which could grow through holes in the structure. Designers are estimating that it could take 14 months before roots of each teraPOT starts interlockings and anchoring the structure in place. (Tucker, 2016).

Picture 27 © TeraPOT

Picture 28 © CALTROPe

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Other supported adaptation measures which follow the ecosystem based approach coral islands, seagrass beds and oyster reefs. Biophysical feedbacks within those systems have a capacity to accommodate perturbations from extreme events and sea level rise (Oppenheimer et al., 2019). Performance of coral islands can be measured long and short term, both successful to conditions of rapid sea level rise. They can reduce total wave energy by 94 - 98 percent and wave driven flooding volume by 72 percent (Ferrario et al., 2014). Studies show that seagrass beds can attenuate wave height and energy by as much as 40 -50 percents (Oppenheimer et al., 2019).

Floating architecture is a type of adaptable solution, which has gained popularity through the past couple of decades, although some communities have been living on floating islands for centuries (for example Uru communities on lake Titicaca in Bolivia and Peru). It´s a sustainable solution against sea level rise as it can adjust according to sea levels in time and usually has a long lifespan if maintained properly. It normally doesn't have a destructive effect on marine ecosystem.

Quite contrary, it can create artificial reefs, provide food and shelter for marine life.

Reference projects

Reference projects

The Living Breakwater is a coastal green infrastructure project, which aims to foster cultural resilience, ecological regeneration and coastal protection. It’s transforming shallow estuary waters into resilient and active shorelines, which have a capacity to withstand storms such as Hurricane Sandy. A part of the project consists of constructing backwater-like structures which would as well contribute to restoration of rich marine life, nowadays lost due to siltation, channel dredging and human pathogens in water. The area has been historically known for its oyster production, which is an aspiring concept to bring back. The Billion Oyster Project is growing oyster reef habitats, which not only protect the area against sea driven disasters, but also brings educational and community oriented aspects. (Scape Studio, 2014).

The project Moving School in Goa - Floating unit is addressing children of migrant workers whose parents lived in tents on a riverbank and working on boats. Floating school was constructed on river rafts and has together with the rolling unit and onland huts provided education for more than 10.000 children since 2001. (Moving School, 2016).

- The Living Breakwaters, New York,

Picture 29 © Living Breakwaters Projects

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- The Moving School, Goa, Moving School Foundation

Picture 30 © Moving School

Picture 31: Coastal protection at Bandra Reclamation Promenade, Mumbai

Evaluation matrix Each type of mentioned flooding response and/or adaptation measure has a set of advantages and disadvantages. They all might be important contributors towards a synergic response to sea level rise (Oppenheimer et al., 2019). It seems like responsive measures which would increase resilience across all systems (natural and socio - economic ones) are rare and might as well be economically difficult to defend. A combination of sediment base and ecosystem based types of defence into so-called hybrid measures, might be a promising way forward. As Hopwood et. al (2005) suggest, a long term environmental sustainability, of which flooding defence and sea level rise are esentially a part of, requires to be grounded with concepts linked to social and environmental sustainability and human equity.

Densely populated areas in low lying zones, like coastal megacities, present the biggest adaptation challenge. Until today, engineered protections have played a central role in response actions in such cases, but the question of affordability remains, especially for developing regions (Oppenheimer et al., 2019). The opportunity to leapfrog towards ecosystem based approaches is big and open. They could become the most efficient defense method, but only when human interventions and actions (pollution, reclamation, infrastructure) go hand in hand with nature. Responses should be local, site-specific and culturally accepted. Hence, this project suggests such strong linkages of environmental and socio-economic sustainability and resilience.

Chapter on the strategic framework is rounded with an assessment of adaptation measures according to their resilient performance. A methodology of evaluation leans on the understanding of the system as an interlink between socio-economic and environmental mattress and evaluates adaptation measures accordingly.

The matrix originates from the desired characteristic of the intervention defined by the hypothesis of this research, which type of a system they relate to (natural or socio-economic one) and how well they perform under specific disturbances.

The outcome provides a toolbox which prioritizes certain strategic approaches that are later on used in this project’s initiations.

Development of the evaluation matrix

1. Step one Selection of conventional adaptation measures (depends on the project aim) - solution should be flexible, adjustable, should respond to changing seasonalities, tidal movements and kinetic nature of water. Besides, it should be sustainable in an environmental, social and economic way, provide social and spatial justice.

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Hence, listed measures are selected:

- Accomodation: land use changes, flood proofing buildings and early warning systems

- Advance: planting vegetation which supports natural acceleration of land

- Hard protection barriers: sandbag sea walls, coastal rock pools - Soft ecosystem based measures: self-grown barrier islands, mangroves, sandy beaches, tidal marshlands and wetland, mudflats, coral and oyster reef islands, seagrass beds, breakwaters - Floating structures

2. Step two

Defining criteria for evaluation. It is set according to the hypothesis and hence includes following categories, which are paired with the system they respond to: - Use of blue & green infrastructure / nature-based solution / design with nature (environmnetal resiliency)

- Allowing gradual changes, accommodating fluidity and slow transitions (environmnetal resiliency) - Multifunctionality (environmnetal resiliency)

- Increasing biological performance & biodiversity (environmnetal resiliency) - Creating dynamic public realm and promoting inclusive environment (environmnetal resiliency) - Not causing gentrification, providing social and spatial justice (environmnetal resiliency)

3. Step three

Evaluation is based on a question: How well does selected adaptation measure perform under disturbance and how does that affect a specific category?

For example: Disturbance is happening or might happen, how will multifunctionality of mangroves be effected, will they be able to withstand their primarily multifunctional characteristics, will the multifunctionality be changed but still hold a value similar to the original one?

Further on, the response is evaluated with a three point system, described below: 3 points: fast, dynamic response, system is able to change fast and it’s not negatively affected by the disturbance

2 points: response is less dynamic but still high on the value scale 1 point: response is slow, but the system still holds the ability to change, respond, transform, adapt - hold the resilient value

EARLY WARNING SYSTEM

3

S Y S T E M

COASTAL ROCK POOLS

CORAL, OYSTER REEFS

FLOOD PROOFING BUIDLINGS

SELF GROWN ISLANDS

2

FLOATING STRUCTURES

LAND USE CHANGE

SAND BAG SEAWALLS

POLDERS

1

S O C I O - E C O N O M I C

resilience evaluated according to the respons against disturbances within the framework of following characteristics: multifunctionality, promoting inclusive environmnet, creating dynamic public realm and providing social and spatial justice

MANGROVES, MARSHES, WETLANDS

BREAKWATERS

1

2

N A T U R A L

3

S Y S T E M

resilience evaluated according to the respons against disturbances within the framework of following characteristics: nature-based solution and its benefits, accomodating fluxtuations and allowing changeability, increasing biological performance

Evaluation matrix

Reading guide

Outcomes of the evaluation are graphically presented in the above diagramatic matrix. It suggests that most resilient adaptation tools might be mangroves and marshes, breakwaters, land-use change, self grown islands and flood-proofing buildings. Those types of protection have in theory shown a great resilience within natural and socio-ecological systems, and will be considered as most desirable measures. Early warning system has shown a high socio - economic resilience but might perform less dynamically within natural systems. Floating structure and coastal rock pools all imply a sufficient resilience when it comes to socio - economic systems, but might respond slower to disturbances within the natural system. Lastly, sandbag seawalls and polders show less dynamic responses to both types of systems, which means that they will be lower on a prioritization scale.

Social matters Matters of natural environment

URBAN COMPLEXITY

Economic & political matters

Matters of anthropogenic environment

Urban complexity

Strategic toolbox Project’s proposal is working across different scales, starting from a very general, broad theme of Mumbai’s urban conditions and moving through city, neighborhood, and community level. Crossing scales in this manner helps to justify the outcomes with the understanding of systems as interconnected and interdependent. Although efforts of both top-down and bottom-up research have been made, it is important to note that the understandings come from a long-distance perspective and aim to give out a fresh perspective towards the desired conditions.

Reading guide

URBAN COMPLEXITY Targeting specific urban conditions

COASTAL ACUPUNCTURE A network of local adaptations

TRESHOLDS OF OPPORTUNITIES Horizontally dynamic coastal zones

STRATEGIC STEPS Appliable to all points of coastal acupuncture

STRATEGIC INITIATIONS Showcase scenarios for Worli Koliwada

Urban complexity

Urban level

City level

Neighborhood level

Community level

Selected site

Urbanisation is a complex and multilayered process. It reflects the state of a community, nation, and government and should thus be an inclusive and responsive process. Stability of socio-polotical sphere is a crucial factor in urbanisation practices. They have to be understood as a complex system reflecting the state of economy and different conditions within natural and anthropogenic environments. Mumbai indeed seems like a unique case, but it definitely is not the only one.

It seems as a complex, multilayered system, where decisive factors often overlook the repercussions they have on other parts of it. Urban complexity of the city is overshadowed by decisions being made in higher political grounds. Profit driven development projects and ignorance towards crucial state of natural environment and communities are taking control over the future of the city.

Matrix of layered urban complexity in the following pages gives an idea of what kind of problems Mumbai is tangled with. Outlined problems are extruded from academically and commonly written literature, from critical discourses held with professionals working in Mumbai during the thesis process, as well as from personal experiences. It aspires to showcase how those issues, regarding matters within social, economical, political sphere and natural and anthropogenic environments are interlinked and how they constantly produce sets of new problems.

Presented matrix is outlining a channel of work presented in this thesis. Following work is thus aiming to provide solutions for issues being underlined with an arrow. It is important to acknowledge that there are problems with a high, urgent priority, which are an essential part for this project to be successful. Tools of landscape architecture and urban design are limited and sometimes have to stay within their framwork.

A synergetic approach for a holistic planning is necessary across all spheres and sectors.

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NATURAL ENVIRONMENT

SOCIAL SPHERE

Pollution of land, water & air

Illegal land occupation

Contamination of natural sources

Population growth

Increased mean temperature

Social division

Increased heavy rainfall

Migration

Sea level rise

Lack of resources

Monsoon flooding

Illegality withing formal networks

Environmental degradation

Unequal distribution of vital resources

Increased frequency & intensity of cyclones

Decline in primary activities Lack of knowledge and general awareness Social & spatial injustice

ECONOMIC & POLITICAL SPHERE

ANTHROPOGENIC ENVIRONMENT

Property rights

Lack of open space

Corruption

Insufficient and outdated public transport

Profit oriented development Missing urban discourse within political sphere

Fast urban sprawl

Poor maintenance of public service infrastructure

Ignorance towards the reprocussion projects have on environment

Urban heat island effect

Poor disaster management

Dangerous illegal & makeshift solutions

Gentrification

Missing proper climate change mitigation policies Responsive land zoning

Nuclear power plants on sensitive grounds

Encroachment Lack of quality urban areas Poor sanitation Inadeqaute waste management Inadequate water drainage

Coastal acupuncture

A strategy which aims to locally foster resilience and grow adaptation measures against sea level rise

Coastal urban villages and informal settlements as catalyst for sea level rise adaptation measures

Coastal acupuncture is a strategic concept at the city level, which aims to locally foster resilience and grow adaptation measures against sea level rise in Mumbai. It proposes a city wide network of strategically located points, zones, areas or rather neighborhoods, which have a potential to upscale their existing practices of adaptation and implement small scale ones. In this regard, those ponits could provide a sustainable and systematic approach to deal with the threat of rising waters in the long term.

In this thesis, the environment of Mumbai is understood as a complex urban system, where capital driven development projects overlook the repercussions they have on the communities and the environment. The nature of sea level rise adaptation does not follow the same ideals. Those projects are planned for the future disaster, with a strong factor of uncertainty. Building up on the socio-political conditions of Mumbai, one has to envision an alternative approach towards climate change adaptation projects and perhaps rethink them as adaptation pathways, rather than static projects. Looking at existing formal flood mitigation strategies adapted by official bodies, it is evident that they don’t reduce risks of the city's most vulnerable people, who also happen to be the ones at most risk (Chatterjee, 2010).

Catch me if you can is proposing coastal acupuncture, which follows the analytical part and identifies zones of informal settlements and urban villages as potential areas of adaptive interventions. It builds on the existing condition, situations and allows flexibility, multifunctionality and equity within the strategic planning. With that, this project aims to showcase how climate adaptation projects have a potential to be made

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inclusive, rather than exclusive, and proves that gentrification and displacement of marginalized groups are avoidable.

Identified coastal urban villages and informal settlements are occupying strategic locations, not just by being in the coastal zones but are also often located in the ecologically sensitive zones, such as river, canal banks and mangrove rich areas. If they manage to grow adaptation measures, then they have a potential to not just provide coexistence for themselves but also provide adaptive and mitigative effects for the upstream or adjacent areas. Besides, in this project they are seen as already adaptive and one can build upon that predisposition.

Since formal mitigation projects don’t provide them with equal chances they have to work them out themselves and that is seen as an opportunity. This project relies on the readings that locally based adaptations are already existing, but aims to provide a framework for a more systematic approach, which brings more opportunities for implementation.

How to work with points within a network of coastal acupuncture is developed within next chapters of the project.

Coastal acupuncture, strategic concept

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Thresholds of opportunities Thresholds of opportunities is a concept developed at the neighborhood level. It chooses the edge as a functional typology, on the verge and intersection between fluid and static, dynamic and fixed, or what is today perceived as natural and urban. The concept is broad, allowing it to be adapted, twisted and scaled to all points of coastal acupuncture, where one side always faces the external dimension. It follows the theory of wetness (see Understanding Mumbai - “Where really is the edge in Bombay?”), and thus sees densely inhabited coastal

areas as zones of gradual transitions. These transitions allow accommodation of the kinetic nature of water as a dominant organic element, with characteristics such as fluxtuality, changeability and unpredictability.

An attempt of showing how to work with an external edge as a landscape typology in a conflicting urban environment is unfolded and proposed in the following sections.

"Separating land from water on the earth's surface is one of the most fundamental and enduring acts in the understanding and design of human habitation. The line with which this separation is imagined on maps, etched in the imagination, and enforced on the ground with regulations and constrcutions has not only survived centuries of rains and storms to become a taken-for-granted presence; it has also been naturalized in the coastline, the riverbank, and the water's edge."

- Dilip Da Cunha, The Invention of Rivers; Alexander's Eye and Ganga's Descent, 2018

Living with the wetness

Mumbai is a city, where anthropogenic factors have pushed patterns of habitations to the limits. They are finding their way well beyond established “fortified” areas. Due to specific natural conditions that are bringing cyclical rainy periods and due to the state of service infrastructure in the city, inhabitants, especially the ones lef tout from the formal society are finding their own way in how to live with the wetness. Through the academic research and held discussions with practitioners in Mumbai, one can conclude that current incremental, makeshift solutions as adaptation practices are following a vertical axis. It is common to all social classes to move up and build

higher. Practices of slum dwellers are found to be the most adaptive, as inhabitants are building lofts to store their valuables, building new floors for habitation and flood proofing their homes in anticipation of a monsoon. Besides, if resource availability allows, they would as well make simple walls and retreat to communal spaces in case of a flash flood event.

"Incremental trasformations, the most effective form of adaptation."

- Rohit Mujumdar, Thesis talk, 16th of April

"VERTICAL ADAPTATION" - existing practices

finding a common ground MOVING UP

EDGE

Chawl

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Apartment buidling

Reading of the edges

After reading current edge conditions, it is evident that the coastal edge is perceived as a divider between wet and dry.

When understanding a neighborhood as a living organism, one can understand the edge as a front receiver and giver of stresses from surroundings. With current, scientifically proven projections (as described in Understanding Mumbai - Se level rise, 2050 projections), disturbances originating from the sea are going to strengthen and have a larger impact.

Without the practices of adaptation, the edge will be moved

inland, the sea will swallow inhabited land. This project proposes a different approach, where the edge changes it’s notion into being a larger zone, where threshold is understood as rather a gradual change. That allows a better response towards the stresses and disturbances, and thus adapts to the rising waters horizontally. Working across the horizontal axis therefore supplements existing vertical adaptations in the long term perspective.

edge as a line of abrupt change

Coastal zone as a treshold of opportunities

moves inside

Existing condition

Future condition

Proposed condition

"HORIZONTAL ADAPTATION" - proposed TRESHOLD OF OPPORTUNITIES

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~

Acceptance

+

Adaptation

=

Co - existence

~

Working resilienty through dynamics of space and time.

Strategic steps The toolbox is a collection of strategies/tools and associated “sub-steps”. They are developed specifically for a general understanding of the conditions within points of coastal acupuncture. They work across different spatial configurations of coastal edges and propose working with water rather than against it. In this proposal they lean onto each other and are thus dependent on the performance of another. Due to their flexibility, they could be implemented only partially if that suits to the spatial, social and cultural conditions and the concepts at the larger scale.

COPING Collective coping strategies to ease the impact of rising waters on coastal communities.

- To collect - To (dis)connect - To establish

RE - INHABITING Hybrid modes to cohabit coastal zones.

- To re-define - To facilitate - To activate

SCALING Long term strategies to support environmental resiliency and create inclusive habitats.

- To foster - To expand

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Strategic timeline For a better understanding of strategic steps, the presented timeline aims to give an overview of how the strategies are interwoven and interdependent, especially after they are adopted by a selected site. It is important to note that Coping, Re-Inhabiting and Scaling steps with specific sub-strategies don’t intend to be finished, and don't have an end date. The nature of planning long term adaptations is fundamentally a ´wicked problem´ (Rittel and Webber, 1973). Developed strategies lean on this predisposition and thus propose a timeline,

where interventions are originating from conditions provided from another. Seeing the tools as a pathway helps to accommodates climate variability, uncertainty, inequalities within the social sphere and conflicting and opposing stakeholder sites into a framework of adaptation.

TODAY

COPING

what appliable to all points of coastal acupuncture appliable to Worli Koliwada - showcase scenario

how

education & general (environmental) awareness

To Collect resources

Trash collecting system

To (Dis)Connect (un)sustainable practices

Connect to existing networks

Disconnect contamination (sewage discharge) Flash �lood preparedness + Disaster management plan Coast as a collective responsibility

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To Establish productive systems

New modes of economy

Landscape based sewage treatment

T co

Re

ede�ine coastal zoning

To Facilitate hybrid interventions

Coast as landscape infrastructure

SCALING

To Activate productive economy

Landscape as a productive system

To Foster landscape dynamics

Living coast(line)

To Expand networks

CO -E XISTA NC E

To Re-Define oastal dynamics

RE-INHABITING

Connecting systems

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1.

COPING

Main targeted SDGs:

- SDG 6: Clean water and sanitation Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

- SDG 3: Good health and well-being

Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

To Collect resources To collect resources, such as trash accumulated in coastal zones and building materials for flood proofing buildings. → Trash collecting system

To (Dis)Connect (un)sustainable practices To disconnect existing practices of sewage discharge into the ocean. → Disconnect contamination

To connect trash collective system to larger re-use, re-cycle networks of the city and provide grounds for exchange. → Connecting to existing circular economy models

To Establish productive systems To establish community resource (knowledge, skills & materials) centers, provide building materials for flood proofing buildings which is based on equality and does not promote exclusion and social division. → New modes of economy

To establish landscape based cleaning systems for treating sewage water. → Ecosystem-based cleaning system

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To establish a fast escape route and emergency centers. → Flash flood preparations

To establish early warning systems.

→ Proper disaster management plan

Coping as a strategic step aims to shape and influence communitiy’s behaviour by facilitating (non)material resources to cope with the rising waters. It relates to dynamics of resiliency within socio-economic system and thus propels collective acceptance of living with water, rather than fighting against it. Strategy proposes a set of actions which require awareness and build on individual responsibility towards the environment. Those steps influence dynamics within natural systems and therefore have an indirect power to act as adaptation measures against sea level rise. Ideas within

coping could include strategic tools to clean the coastal environment, use those resources as a source of connection into larger recycle, reuse networks within the city and establish a cycle of a productive economic system. It could build as well on disconnecting unsustainable practices of sewage discharge and open defecation in the ocean - contaminating a life source, and proposes landscape based filtration systems to deal with disposal when formal infrastructure is not available.

To Collect

To Establish

To (Dis)Connect

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2.

RE - INHABITING

Main targeted SDGs:

- SDG 14: Life below water Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development

- SDG 15: Life on land

Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

To Re-Define coastal dynamics To re-define coastal zoning and plan temporary uses. → Redefining coastal zoning

To re-define coastal zones as social and environmental infrastructure. → Coast as a collective responsibility

To Facilitate hybrid interventions To facilitate, build, create nature based interventions in coastal zones. → Coast as landscape infrastructure

To Activate productive economy To activate new economic possibilities emerged from remediated coast. → Landscape as a productive system

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Focus of Re-Inhabiting strategic step is on cohabitation of coastal zones. Not in a sense of permanent practices of habitation, but rather as a way of redefining perception one has of the coastline. It aims to shape it as a social and natural, landscape infrastructure and thus redefine what today is a borderline into a symbiotic territory. It builds on the kinetic nature of water, with characteristics such as shifting, fluctuation, permeability and changeability. Temporality, as an

emerging aspect, is the main driving force and influences coastal land zoning by planning for temporal uses, relying on livelihoods and needs of coastal communities. Further on, the strategy facilitates hybrid modes of adaptation practices at various levels. They depend on natural conditions (habitat structure, tidal movements) and local needs, knowledge and resource availability. It activates landscapes as productive systems, from where both human and nature benefit.

To Re-define

To Facilitate

To Activate

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3.

SCALING

Main targeted SDGs:

- SDG 11: Sustainable cities and communities Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

- SDG 9: Industry, innovation and infrastructure Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

To Foster landscape dynamics To foster growing shores and respond responsibly towards future practices. → Living coastline

To Expand networks To expand along the horizontal axis. → Connecting systems

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Scaling strategy proposes to work across axes and scales, and works with resiliency in the largest sense. Further steps and interventions are rooted in detailed contextual study of the sites and builds on complete understanding of local conditions. It promotes inclusive habitat, both for people and nature and acts responsibly towards disturbances. Scaling is an umbrella-like step, collecting bits and pieces from various dimensions into a coherent, sustainable response.

It includes tools with which to expand landscape networks along horizontality and to connect them in order to build or revitalise natural sphere. It is fostering dynamics, such as growing, production and maintenance in order to accomodate a desirable effect. In a long term perspective, scaling strategy works on in-situ upgrades and provides a ground for a future coexistence of natural elements with diverse human actions.

To Foster

To Expand

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Picture 32: Coastal zone at low tide, Worli Koliwada eastern shore © Minor Sights

Strategic initiations Worli Koliwada

Strategic initiations is a section that aims to give out an idea of how to transform the tools to an intervention and what are the ways towards implementation. It aspires to prove the effectiveness of developed strategies and how could they be envisioned as pathways. The ideas are rounded with spatial representations in order to visualise the configuration of space.

It is important to note that those are not design proposals.

This project works startegically and aims to propel the way of thinking and imagining sea level rise adaptation measures.

Selected site, Worli Koliwada, has been introduced in chapeter 3, and following initiations relate to identified specific conditions, which have been mapped to the best of the intention. They provide an example on how to adapt the adaptation measures according to specifics of the site.

Coping

Scaling

Re-Inhabiting

Location diagram of spatial initiations

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Coping Approach taken to showcase coping strategy in the context of Worli Koliwada builds on the model of circular economy. The concept aims to focus on positive society - and environment wide benefits as it tackles problems such as accumulation of solid waste on the shorelines, contaminations of the sea with untreated sewage water, poor marine biology and lack of employment.

The strategy establishes a trash collecting system, involving community and thus increasing general awareness of the problem. Although Koliwada has established waste management that collects waste generated through the day (CEPT, 2017), due to ocean currents and lack of environmental responsibility on a city level, a huge amount of trash gets accumulated in the coastal zones and is left untreated. It affects quality of marine life, causes blocking of an already poorly

- destroyed marine habitat (make space for development projects) - pollution (industrial run-off, sewage discharge, solid waste) - change in weather patterns - effects of climate change

maintained drainage system and brings issues such as illnesses and poor hygienic conditions. The initiation proposes a trash trapping system which is established in the intertidal zone. It consists of low cost sustainable materials, such as locally sourced wood and fishing nets . It helps trap solid waste before reaching inland. Tidal movement favours this concept as it brings particles in the trap, which are then collected during the low tide. Gathered trash gets sorted and delivered to the existing recycle networks of the city, supporting circularity of materials and reuse/recycle/repurpose mentality. Further on, the proposal imagines profit obtained through trash collection to be used to purchase building materials. They go in the hands of a community center. It is a hub of knowledge, skills and material resources for flood proofing individual houses.

- disonnection and lack of basic service infratsructure - poor manitenance of public infrastructure - flooding and other environmental hazards

- facing systematic eviction - privatization

- securitization

LIVING IN THE AFTERMATH OF UNSUSTAINABLE URBANISATION

E X I S T I N G

decline in fishing activities

lack of employment

C O N D I T I O N S

poor habitability

resettling to other city parts

inadeqaute sanitation

dangerous living conditions

COPING STARTEGIC STEP Problem field, relations diagram

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Pathway initiation

To Collect

TRASH

accumulated in the coastal zones

COLLECTION community based solution, powered by natural dynamics

SORTING

To Connect

Solid waste

activating coastal zones with activities though out the whole day

FORMAL NETWORK

Fishing nets

INFORMAL NETWORK REPAIR

TRANSPORT

trash = resource

delivery through existing low impact mobility solution

RECYCLE NETWORK connecting to existing modes of recycling/reusing/repurposing

COMMUNITY CENTER

To Establish

establish a hub of knowledge, skills and resource sharing

BUILDING MATERIALS obtained pro�it used for buidling resources

INDIVIDUAL HOUSES, FLOOD PROOFING applying existing practices of adaptation protection + accommodation

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Spatial initiation

Landscape based sewage treatment is integrated into existing coastal zone. It is one of blue & green infrastructure tools, based on multifunctionality. It brings benefits such as carbon sequestration, filtering air, stabilizing terrain, reducing local urban heat island effect and most importantly treating sewage water. Besides, it builds on strengthening communitiy’s identity, habitability of flora and fauna and environmental resiliency. It is implemented as a set of cascades to oxygenate polluted water. Wastewater has to be pre treated in existing septic tanks (one per cluster of houses), where organic and suspended solids settle to the bottom of the tank. After

134

primary treatment where organic solids are transformed into inorganic substances, the water is transported to the landscape system for secondary and tertiary treatment. It includes gravel filter (5), oxygenation cascade (4), biological purification part (3), quality stabilization terrace (2) and sand filter with final polishing (1). Treated water is further released into the ocean. Inspiration on how to work with landscape based wastewater treatments can be found in the indian context - East Kolkata Wetlands are one of the biggest natural systems with that performative capacity and they follow simillar system as the one described above.

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Trash traping system - using old fishing nets

The idea of reusing fishing nets comes from a fact that they represent one of the most environmentally dangerous disposed plastic composites. The proposal collectes them and utilizes them within a trash collecting system. The systems

works along the natural dynamics of the ocean and fluctuates together with the changes in the tides. In this manner the solution is truly sustainable, the poles and other materials used would preferably be sourced as well locally and reused.

high tide

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Catch me if you can

135

What if coastal zones would be perceived as social and landscape-based infrastructure?

Collage, visual imagination

view from the sea

Catch me if you can

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Re - Inhabiting a static intervention into a flexible one. Existing activities in the coastal zone of the village are mapped and combined with new ones that originate from existing practices, either being relocated or reapplied and resurfaced. The diagram below shows how coastal zones become active throughout the day and thus promote lively, safe and inclusive spaces of social infrastructure. Activities within the tourism cycle invite Mumbaikars and foreigners into the urban village and in this way connect it better to the other city’s tissue. Attractive activities connected to the historical Worli fort promote community's livelihood, as well as social and economic state.

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This proposal seeks to re-define coastal zones into areas of social and environmental infrastructure, where both people and nature benefit, in the path towards the coexistence. Using temporality in the land use drives this proposal, from being

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138

To Re-define

Pathway initiation

COAST AS LANDSCAPE INFRASTRUCTURE sea as a collective resource update regulations & policy

BREAKWATER with native aquatic plants

To Facilitate

BENEFITS as an adaptation measure

NATURE

COMMUNITY local coastal community

local marine habitats and microclimate

REDUCE WAVE ENERGY performative capacity

FILTER WATER

perfromative capacity

PROTECTION from extreme events, strong storm surges

CRAB COLLECTION informal economy cycle ‘goods’ exchange

HABITAT PROVISION

To Activate

providing healthy conditions for local �lora & fauna

SORTING, DRYING temporal activities in the coastal zones, an important puzzle in the mosaic

RESTORE MARINE BIODIVERSITY improved conditions

BETTER FISH CATCHMENT thriving Koli community

Catch me if you can

139

Spatial initiation

Spatially, this strategy suggests implementing a breakwater as a landscape-based adaptation measure. It has proven to be the best match for the selected site within the established and commonly known practices of adaptation, due to existing habitat type and scale of the intervention. The most important resilient characteristic of breakwater that performs within the natural system is decreasing wave energy, thus providing protection against storm surges. When the breakwater scales horizontally it as well has a potential to offer protection against sea level rise, creating a backside, shallow, lagoon-like landscape typology. Therefore, it might be taken

140

as an intervention, which accommodates acute risks, and has a potential to work in the long term as a catalyst to change the zone into an adaptation measure. Besides, with creating a rocky marine habitat along the footnote of the breakwater, it can contribute significantly towards the restoration of the local biology. Native species of flora and fauna are inserted with the help of biodigratable sockets filled with appropiate substrat. They contribute towards water filtration and habitat provision. Collecting crab and small fish is an existing practice that this solution picks up and scales.

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Catch me if you can

141

What if coastal communities would benefit from stronger water dyanmics?

Collage, visual imagination

view from the sea

Catch me if you can

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Scaling Scaling step within this project proposal leans on successful implementation of Coping and Re-Inhabiting strategies. They should all together work coherently in providing grounds for a long term vision of coexistence of land, water, people and nature. Scaling within the context of Worli Koliwada aims to showcase how the edge can be blurred, perceived rather as a zone of gradual change. Threshold of opportunities becomes a dynamic space, fostering resilience within the natural and socio-economic system. Tools for fostering landscape dynamics such as green infrastructure and responsible land zoning are taken into account. More concerete examples could be a gradual change of ground program from residential to communal, as well as floating structures. Transformed conditions allow the zone to be a social, productive, resilient and biodiverse. It strengthens the identity of the adjacent community by providing space of belonging and space of social interactions. What once was a neglected space within the western edge of Worli Koliwada, becomes a responsive urban and natural zone driven by natural dynamics. It provides a responsive common ground for coexistence in the future landscapes of uncertainties.

Conceptual diagram, scaling along the coastaline

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Pathway initiation

COASTAL ACUPUNCTURE ZONE coast as landscape infrastructure

RESILIENT responsive towards disturbances, capacity to transform, regenerate, reshape & rebuild itself

CLIMATE RESPONSIBLE supporting natural hydrological cycle & local microclimate

PRODUCTIVE providing new modes of livelihoods & economic systems, powered by natural dynamics

MARKER OF IDENTITY place of belonging & responsibility

SOCIAL providing opportunities for cultural & social exchange

BIODIVERSE FLUID, FLEXIBLE accomodating kinetic nature of water & not determined

CITY spatialy integrated into city’s contemporary urban culture

rich �lora & fauna

COASTAL COMMUNITY thriving, resilient & inclusive local communities

Catch me if you can

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Initiations aim to show simple interventions within thisstrategic step. Scaling works on fostering the landscape dynamics and expanding along the horizontal axis, thus main emphasis is given on providing spaces for production and multifunctionality where the community has the capacity to plan for temporal activities. It gives them the opportunity to work along rhythms of nature, like changing seasonality. The space is inviting and allows exchange between people and people and nature. The strategy proposes gradual change of program in frontline buildings into spaces of community which can better accommodate extreme events, such as storm

surges. Besides, adaptive floating structures are presented as a means of adaptation. Some of the activities from more permanently wet zones could be relocated there. This initiation suggests that selected practices of boat reparations are rather placed on the floating structures in order to better utilize dry land zones for other purposes, like habitation and economic activities related to land. Lastly, mangrove nursery is an addon activity, both beneficial for nature and community.

mangrove nursery

multipurpose floating structures

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Spatial initiation

trash collecting system

gradual change of front ground floor program - community based activities multipurpose area for common temporal activities

strong connection with the backside of the neighborhood

breakwater - landscape based solution land reclamation in order to strengthen the connection

community based crab farm

Catch me if you can

147

Collage, visual imagination

view from the sea

148

Collage, visual imagination

view towards the sea

Catch me if you can

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Strategies through local experiences User stories from Worli Koliwada - tool/strategies in action

Makeshift intervention for trapping trash in the coastal zones gets implemented with the help of local community. It is initiated by an environmental organization or initiative, such as Mahim Beach Cleanup.

Community gets involved from the start, picking up on building environmental responsibility and the importance of a healthy ecosystem. The solution is made out of locally sourced materials and old, but repaired, fishing nets.

COPING - implementation of fishing nets into the trash trapping system

“Me and my local community group have an activity day on Monday - we will gather and offer help to implement a trash trapping system to keep our shores clean. Then we can finally use them as gathering spots during the low tide, perfect for an evening sunset watching!”

COPING - monitoring and maintenance of the landscape based sewage treatment zone

“Every Wednesday morning, me and my school class start the day with maintaining vegetation on landscaped terraces. We plant species that help us with filtering waste water.

Now I wish to become a biologist when I grow up."

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A landscape-based sewage treatment system is the last step for the wastewater before it gets released to the sea. It relies on constant maintenance and monitoring under the surveillance of a local school.

Kids and pupils have a chance to explore life cycles, vegetation purposes and ecosystem services. They can learn about natural systems and processes, themes such as photosynthesis, phytoremediation, pedology and biology. Other community members have a chance to engage as well and thus enable intergenerational exchange.

RE-INHABITING - using and activating coastal zones as social infrastructure

“Finally we have a cinema in our community!

We don’t have to travel far to see a movie.”

“Tonight we are Our watching Planet. I’ve heard it’s a documentary about the environment, animals and humans. I’m so excited!”

One of the new temporary activities related to the coastal zones is open air cinema. It is a ‘traveling’ installation, being able to be realized in many different ways. On the tip of Worli Koliwada it uses a facade of Worli Fort and thus activates the building. It provides a unique opportunity to bring outsiders into the village and therefore opens possibilities for related economic activities.

In Worli it proposes a series of evening events with primarily environemntal thematics.

SCALING - sharing local knowledge through learning experiences

Mangrove nursery connected to the breakwater is a common ground for sharing knowledge, learnings, experiences and ideas. It provides a unique natural ecosystem and coastal laboratory, providing ecosystem services as well as economic opportunities as the mangroves are replanted to other parts of the city. Besides, it enables an exchange between formal and informal society, kinetic and static parts of the city.

“Today we are visiting Koliwada’s mangrove nursery. We are gathering samples to evaluate environmental conditions so that we can better understand correlations between changing elements in water and growth factors. Our marine institute is collaborating with locals who share so much knowledge with us.”

Catch me if you can

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5

evaluation The evaluation is a chapter that works with the ‘abstract’ question of what if. The project’s proposal is evaluated and elaborated. It proposes possible scenarios to carry the project further on. Presented sections round the project into a comprehensive unit, and thus conclude the work. Lastly, specific limitations of the project are critically examined and suggest improvements.

- Discussion -Reflection - Limitations - Conclusions

zoom in

Project development speci�ic proposal

use the toolkit - only to elaborate on it further, develop according to speci�ic site conditions

Catch me if you can thesis proposal

toolkit speci�ic to conditions of coastal acupuncture points of Mumbai

re-think re-con�igure re-fresh re-contextualize & integrate

zoom out

Standardized toolkit generalized proposal

strategic manual on how to approach projects concerning sea level rise in urban environments of the Global South

establish a framework

Further work, diagram

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Discussion This thesis explores topics related to urban resilience, which has been brought to the discourse with increased natural disasters impacting densely inhabited coastal megacities (Gray and Ocampo, 2017). It reflects upon the ideas of blending natural, social, political and practical sciences. It selects the domain (sea level rise), within the scope of landscape architecture and urban design, which unfolds the overlapping vulnerabilities of contemporary urban landscapes in the city of Mumbai. Scholars Gray and Ocampo (2017) suggest, “cities are only as resilient as their most vulnerable citizens”. Hence, aiming for a sustainable and resilient future, one can not overlook cities' most marginalized groups of society - dwellers in informal settlements and urban villages. This project is thus exploring the opportunities for fostering resilience and adaptations from those unique spatial configurations.

Catch me if you can works on different levels and in various scales. That comes from a belief that for a comprehensive and holistic planning and design, one has to continuously be able to zoom in and zoom out, in order to understand the existing conditions and plan equitably for the desired outcomes. The project positions itself at the interface between land and water. Chosen typology outlines not only the physical relations between two entities, but also portrays social and spatial division between formal and informal, or static and kinetic parts of the city. With two thirds of residents living in only 5 percent of Mumbai’s total area (Mehta, 2005), this project focuses on hidden and degraded landscapes of negligence in kinetic parts of the city of majority, and sees them as dynamic zones of opportunities. Proposed strategies follow the idea that a secure urban future calls out for collective actions. Overseeing large infrastructure as adaptations measure without any proof for long term effectiveness, this proposal rather suggests working locally and on a small scale, with a potential for upscaling and expanding in the future. Only in this manner, adaptation can be made sustainable in the full sense - relating to social, economic and environmental aspects of it. Those conclusions are based on Mumbai’s conditions, where sea level rise is not a top priority, either being on institutional or individual level.

Justifying interventions "only" as adaptations against the potential future disaster has to be supported with additional aspects. The ones that would touch upon acute issues and risks. That’s why this project seeks multifunctional and adjustable solutions, prioritizes temporality over permanency and links strongly to socio-economic resiliency. Sea level rise is challenged by uncertainty and by conflicting stakeholder

interests and priorities (Ramm, Watson and White, 2018). In that regard, developed strategies work strongly on community-based implementation, without involvement of large and capital seeking investors. They are opening coastal zones as common ground, proposing working along the horizontality and supporting existing vertical types of adaptation. Mumbai can be made more resilient, if one understands and enhances the city's tissue as a socio-ecological system (Indorewala and Wagh, 2018), based on socio-economic values, with strong exchange between natural spheres.

Presented work is developed as a strategic project that relates to the theory of adaptation pathways (Bosomworth et al., 2015). It is complementing the analytical approach of DAPP (dynamic adaptive policy pathway), based on robustness and flexibility (Bosomworth et al., 2015), with empirical data, gathered from local sources themselves. It proposes the type of adaptation planning where a variety of possible future scenarios are imagined. Flexible tools allow working in various domains, according to the specific needs of local community, available resources and general changes and demands in time. This concept relates to the reading of cities as living organisms, just as the theory of landscape does. It supports and advocates development urbanism when planning for all residents of the city equally. Tools such as green and blue infrastructure are gradually implemented, serving with a wide palette of benefits, both to humans and nature. The proposed toolbox is based on ideas of participatory planning and design and is proving social and spatial justice in the climate adaptation project. It applies the principles of urban acupuncture to the coastal context and twists and scales it accordingly. In that regard, it proves how flexible and applicable as a concept is.

The project is based on the belief that living amidst the wetness should be taken as a benefit, rather than as a disadvantage. Therefore, the existing notion of standing against the water is changed to standing with the water in a symbiotic relationship. It aspires to change the notion of an edge and blurs the perceived boundaries. In this regard, it advocates the theory of wetness, with the understanding that water is in fact everywhere, only in different “degrees”. Although developed strategies, further on elaborated in the initiations, are placed to the informal/kinetic city, they incorporate aspects of the static one. Advocation of exchange between different worlds is included and elaborated to the possible design. When looking back and reflecting upon the research questions, it should be clear how they got incorporated and eventually answered.

Catch me if you can

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It is important to understand the growth of spatial fabric and different circumstances that have shaped the edge typologies, in order to successfully implement such project. A model which combines scientific studies, supported by communitybased decision making planning, could become a driver of future development projects. Landscape architecture as a design discipline has a potential to extract practices from informal activities and integrate them into planning and design processes. Inidgineous communities, such as Koli fisherfolk in Mumbai, possess a great deal of indigineous knowledge. Julia Watson in her recent book, LO-TEK, Design by Radical Indigenism (2019) states that such communities are pioneers of technologies which embody solutions to climate change. Principles of indigineous design have potential to be adopted and reshaped by developed high tech industries and contribute to adaptation and mitigation policies (Watson, 2019). Koli communities have their own ways of adapting to changing natural conditions, like the temperature and color of the sea. They are based on everyday collective learnings from experiences and embodied in the flexible knowledge system based on changeability (summarized after thesis talk with Latiha Kamath, 2021). Inigineous communities are living in nature and designing with it, which connects to McHarg’s theory of design with nature (1967). One has to understand that humanity is not superior and rather has to shift towards a greater symbiosis between human and nature. (Watson, 2020, cited by Frearson, 2020).

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This thesis has been driven by constant questioning. Most of the questions which have arisen are complex, difficult even to grasp, let alone to answer within such a congested timeframe.

The most constant and persistent questions go as follows: How to even approach sea level rise in a densely populated and conflicting urban environment of the global south, where stakeholders and social classes hold very opposing views?

Where to start and where and what is the”know-how” for the field of landscape architecture or urban design?

This project doesn’t end here. It aims to explore the questions mentioned above. Diagram presented in the previous page (p. 154, Further work) visualizes possible future steps. They include a reshaping of presented strategies after giving them more thought and hopefully academic and practical discussion. Then the idea would be to zoom out, where standardization and even broader generalization of the toolbox could take place. Those tools on how to work with projects related to coastal development and adaptations in the global south could be gathered in the strategic manual. Later on, with more detailed specifications of the project, the idea would be to zoom in again and imagine possible steps on how to approach the project. Initial, very broad, general, and rough ideas are listed in the following framework. This kind of a toolbox with the pathway within the project development would ensure a coherent and resilient work with the issue of sea level rise across all connected disciplines. Perhaps, landscape architecture holds the power of initiating and carrying this process.

Using standardized startegic manual

1

...when approaching coastal development projects or/and addressing adaptation projects in dense urban environments of the Global South - a guide on how to approach, start, conceptualize - standardized policies idnependant of specified professions

Choosing domain

2

- choosing a general domain for the project - study of related, connected and dependent issues - prioritization, build the systematic hierarchy - define objective and specifications

Understanding conditions

3

- in-dept studies of the site conditions through the lens of selected domain - include community in the participatory planning process - identify possible stakeholders and build relations

Recontextualizing tools

4

- twist, reconfigure and contextualize startegic tools provided by the manual, according to the domain and specific site conditions - study the timeline and relations within startegies - include stakeholders in the process, study interests and constrains - develop value chains and pathways

Implementing tools

5

- develop spatial initiations - resource availability study - design and technical proposal - implementation

Monitoring, improving, developing

6

- monitor the project and established relations - record learnings and implement them directly on site - scale when appropriate

Proposed framework, brainstorm diagram

Catch me if you can

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Picture 33: View over Mahim Bay, Bandra Reclamation promenade, Mumbai

Reflection Limitations

Conclusion

The scope of this project proposal has been limited due to Covid-19 pandemics. As stated in Chapter 3, effective response needs to be site specific and address all related vulnerabilities. It is important to interpret local culture and act accordingly to their needs and local resources. Ethnographic research of the selected site has been confined to sparse studies available online, since a field trip to Mumbai was put on hold for the time being. Although alternative measures have been conducted, they can not replace having a personal experience with specific impressions of the site. Besides, the project has been limited by a tight time frame. If the time would allow, a longer period for developing strategies and initiations would be beneficial, as well as larger, in-depth studies of similar adaptation pathway projects.

Looking back through the process, this project could have been made better if more interviews with locals from Mumbai would have been conducted early on. Efforts have been laid, but unfortunately, perhaps due to the nature of academic works, many of the desired interviewers have not been responded to. Having no previous experience with interviews, it was difficult to hold an academic discussion, especially talking to experts in the field. Despite that, those discussions have not only enriched the project, but have also added to the personal skills.

Developed toolkits with strategic steps are relatively general and broad. That is a strength since it allows flexibility and adaptability, some of the key components of the project aim, but it is also a limitation. Nevertheless, according to the digital workflow, one could say the outcomes are satisfactory as they do answer set research questions and follow the project aim .

Initiations miss more justification for presented “humble” interventions. For that, more discussion within the supervision group and external experts would be beneficial. Those subjects are quite difficult to grasp from a single perspective, and would thus be easier to understand and tackled with more guidance and general discussion.

Perhaps, the way this thesis reads appears to be complex. Despite reframing the narrative over and over again, it might not have landed in the correct position just yet. Reflecting upon that, complex themes such as the one presented might be better explained in a simpler manner. It lacks more fluid connection between theoretical and more practical, strategic parts and better dridging between the themes. That is something this thesis would embark on if the time frame would have been extended.

The project demonstrates an alternative toolbox to conventional adaptation to sea level rise. It works under the resiliency umbrella and understands it as an interlinked web of responses against disturbances impacting natural and socioeconomic systems. Presented outcomes build resilience for those most at risk of coastal flooding, based on historical and contemporary conditions. It speculates that the future formal flood mitigations won’t diminish their vulnerabilities. Catch me if you can project sees water as the omnipresent element and catalyst for and against the change. With that being said, it aims for a coexistence between water and people, land and water. Adaptation toolkit is developed as a set of strategies.

It consists of Coping, Re-Inhabiting and Scaling, which target specific coastal configurations within a network of Coastal Acupuncture in Mumbai, India. The project leans on spatial and socio-political conditions of Mumbai, but accommodates flexibility. In this manner it opens an opportunity to be further developed into a framework which could be twisted, reshaped and reconfigured. In this regard, the project carries a capacity of connecting to larger discourse on urban resilience and climate adaptation projects in the global south. With the outcomes, it proves that climate policy and adaptation projects can be made inclusive and equitable.

Although this thesis focuses on the congested urban environments of the global south and more specifically examins Mumbai, it is important to understand that climate change doesn't spare anyone, anywhere. The effects are and will continuously be felt differently according to specific geographies and people's position within the social systems. That calls out for a greater solidarity between scientific fields, design professions and decision makers. Working with water spans across borders and is common to both developed and developing world.

Learnings from the global south hold an immense opportunity to be adapted for the needs of the global north, and the other way around. Although the circumstances are different in different parts of the world, coastal development and adaptation projects have one thing in common: “We need to let the water in.”

(Christina Capetillo; Landskab nr. 2 - 2021) - and then the water replied: “Catch me if you can.”

Catch me if you can

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Personal reflection Finally concluding the thesis on a personal note. Working in a context of a different culture, different geography and different mentality has put me well beyond my comfort zone. It has broadened my horizons, especially within the understanding of how powerful the field of landscape architecture can be.

Reading complex urban conditions of Mumbai has not been easy but challenged the way I think of problems and how to justify solutions. This thesis has expanded my curiosity and I’m sure it propelled a continuous search for new ideas and challenges. Working more specifically with water has helped me evolve the understanding of the landscape system in a constant motion and influx and thus the way I read the landscape. Seeing the environment not confined to lines, borders and frames is definitely a key takeaway. Furthermore, thinking of connecting social problems, like gentrification, justice and the right to democratic city to climate adaptation projects and policies has given me an additional view on how to approach projects. I’m excited to take this project further on, as I believe it can have the right impact on urgent issues. For me, landscape architecture is about finding the right balance between people and nature. It’s about the celebration of relationships we build either between each other or within the remaining natural systems.

Lastly, I’d like to note that although I’ve presented a series of problems, issues and deteriorating conditions in Mumbai, there are great initiatives and projects being realized. Those initiatives give hope for a better future of the city. What current generations are bringing to the urban discourse in Mumbai is astonishing and inspirational. I hope, aspire and strive for a better exchange of knowledge and ideas. Perhaps, exponential digitalization and easier online communication might be the only positive outcomes of the current Covid-19 pandemic.

"Landscapes here and there & landscapes now and for the future!"

6

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If not stated otherwise, all illustrations and photographs included in this report are original works of the author.

170

Picture credits

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Catch me if you can

May 2021