Urban Strategies for Cyclonic-Flash Flood Resilience in Puri, Odisha

According to the EM-DAT database (i.e. emergency events database), 90% of natural disasters are hydro-meteorological hazards. Studies indicate that floods and storms have combined to cause 71% of all disasters since 1990. Various states of India are prone to disasters, including which, geo-climatic condition of Odisha’s coastal belt makes it highly vulnerable to tropical cyclones and floods. The upcoming proposals of the state government for the world heritage city have a significant gap in terms of disaster management. Also, the existing studies related to the disasters have been done only on preparedness and recovery stages, and lack a mitigation approach. The study aims to analyse the most vulnerable urban areas of the town and recommend urban strategies to mitigate flash floods due to cyclones and integrate the same in the proposed master plan for flood resilience by amalgamating the blue-green infrastructure strategies with the existing conditions and government proposals to enhance the resilience of the heritage city.