Learning from the storm
We should be harnessing our rainwater, not letting it run away
While ethekwini is still reeling in the wake of the devastation wrought by the worst floods to befall the region in recent memory, those fortunate enough to still have access to electricity and online platforms have been calling out governance failures as the reason that a disastrous event became catastrophic.
It is impossible to know how many of the hundreds of lost lives could have been spared if roads and stormwater infrastructure had been properly maintained, adequate drainage systems implemented, and human settlement in hazardous locations prevented.
We do know, however, that in South Africa poverty goes hand-in-hand with vulnerability, and that various types of danger lie in wait when basic services are not delivered. But is our idea of service delivery, which prioritises traditional engineering solutions, the sustainable answer in the face of increasingly erratic weather patterns?
The proponents of a relatively new urban construction model would argue it is not.
Working with nature
The Sponge City model rejects the traditional approach of urban design, which diverts water away from its natural courses to make way for buildings, with excessive amounts of concrete surfaces leading to rainwater going to waste and ultimately degrading water ecosystems. Instead, it holds that the key to resilience to both floods and droughts is to strengthen natural resources, instead of trying to shut them out. The idea is to reintroduce natural green spaces or other permeable surfaces that can soak up excess rainwater and allow for the cleaning and
harnessing of that water.
In heavily developed cities, there are obvious challenges to implementing the Sponge City model simply because of the extent of existing hard surface infrastructure. The lack of tarmac roads and pavements in many informal settlements, on the other hand, could present an opportunity for comparatively swift Sponge City interventions.
Sponge Cities
In 2014 the Chinese government formally adopted the Sponge City model in its urbanism
policy. More than a decade earlier, researchers had proposed it as an important intervention against the problems caused by conventional stormwater management systems. Ecological urbanists embarked on several campaigns to have the model adopted but it was only after a Beijing flood in 2012, which claimed 79 lives, that the Sponge City concept became a nationwide policy.
As Kwazulu-natal, ethekwini and its surrounds start to rebuild lost infrastructure, urban planners would be well advised to consider the Sponge City model.