Flash floods, superstorms, rising sea levels, blistering temperatures, droughts — our reality is changing. The time to future proof our cities is now.
‘We were looking at the radar thinking, Goodness, if this hits, then it’s going to be cataclysmic. And indeed, it was.’
That was Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths in an interview just days after the UAE was hit with a superstorm back in April. We’d never seen anything like it out here — a first in 75 years. It surpassed ‘anything documented since the start of data collection in 1949,’ wrote the state’s WAM news agency.
See, we live in the desert, we build our cities to withstand heat, dust, sandstorms. We do not, however, build them to survive a year’s worth of rain in one day. But while that storm might have been a first, it is by no means a one off, says noted climate strategist Farah Naz.
She points to atmospheric rivers — experts believe this is what happened in April. Long, narrow corridors of concentrated water vapour — think rivers in the sky. And much like rivers will, these atmospheric rivers too can gather force and wallop coastal cities.
And what’s exacerbating them — well, need we even say?
‘We are in the middle of a climate and biodiversity emergency — 2024 is set to become the hottest year in 175 years of recorded history. That day the storm hit us, other parts of the world were grappling with their own crises. Climate data and modelling indicates extreme weather events like these will only grow more frequent, more severe and more destructive.’
Deadlier, she says — sadly, both the UAE and Oman suffered fatalities in April. And because our cities are getting denser, the risk is amplified.
Let’s say we do nothing…
Today, some 56% of the world’s population — that’s 4.4 billion people — lives in cities. This number will double by 2050 — that’s 7 in every 10 people. It’s why most climate experts will insist cities are at the front line. Multiplied gas emissions, yes, but it’s also where the threat is most concentrated — and so, the cost.
In the end, Dubai Airport needed 22 tankers with vacuum pumps to get all that rainwater out. Emirates chief Tim Clark said in a media briefing after, the storm cost the airline USD 110 million. And flooding in the UAE, Bahrain and Oman resulted in insured losses of up to USD 850 million.
But this immediate, visible aftermath — overwhelmed drainage systems, flooded neighbourhoods and business districts, damage to infrastructure and property, and those news staple snapshots of residents paddling through pools and sudden rivers in kayaks — that’s missing the flip side of the coin.
Naz, who also serves as the head of innovation and ESG at AECOM Middle East and Africa, says there’s the bigger picture to consider. A few years ago, the city of Miami approached AECOM to look into the business case for investing in resilience.
‘Now that’s a 92-billion-dollar tourism industry. And after working out the numbers, we found that if there’s even a ten per cent chance of a storm, by 2040 that single storm will end up costing the region 3.2 billion dollars. And by 2070, that cost will climb to 16.5 billion dollars. Not to mention, it would undermine the strength of its real estate market.’
A single storm, and billions of dollars gone. Plus, cost of recovery — for Hurricane Sandy, the US government had to stitch together a 50-billion-dollar relief package; to recover from Hurricane Katrina, USD 120 billion in federal funds.
All that money — and it still does nothing to prepare you for the next storm.
Batten down the hatches
So, we start planning.
Naz further says of AECOM’s findings, ‘Investing in resilience yields at an eight is to one ratio. So for every dollar invested in future proofing, eight dollars are avoided in direct damage to assets, and in cascading impacts to the community, the environment and the economy.’
Essentially, it’s not just that you’d extend the lifespan of your infrastructure. You’d be ensuring business continuity. Plus, resilience efforts create jobs. Last year, the UAE’s construction market was valued at USD 94 billion — think of the opportunities.
But there’s more. ‘We can also translate that excess rainwater into a resource — it’s an inconvenience because of flooding. But what if it were able to seep underground and then used to replenish the groundwater system? If we could revise the quality of our soil to hold rainwater, we’d be turning it into an asset.’
‘Breathable sand’, explains Naz, and a Dubai-based innovator’s already working on it. Simply put, instead of purely relying on drainage systems, we build a ‘sponge city’ which leverages green spaces as reservoirs to capture, retain and absorb excess stormwater.
It needs to be green — and blue
Do a little investigating and you’ll find experts have long switched tracks from smart cities to climate smart cities — so your standard hyperconnected scenario of talking fridges and garbage cans, but the build also needs to be climate smart.
Naz points to Terra, the sustainability pavilion at EXPO 2020 Dubai — she worked on it herself as sustainability lead and says it can be seen as a microcosm of a climate smart city. The main canopy — a 135-metre-wide, solar-panel-covered ‘tree’ — collects stormwater and dew. It’s also surrounded by smaller ‘water trees’ and a series of gardens to create a water-efficient landscape that collects, supplies and recycles water.
This integrates green elements — parks, gardens — with blue elements — ponds, lakes, watercourses — to make urban spaces more resilient. And there you have it, green and blue infrastructure.
‘Climate smart landscaping can convert grey infrastructure into conscious infrastructure, into climate-positive green and blue infrastructure. Dubai’s 2040 Urban Master Plan provides for green corridors — we need to take every city’s urban plan and overlay it with a plan for climate smart landscaping and climate resilience,’ says Naz.
Smart cities anticipate risk
So, your climate response plan goes, rescue stranded assets and restore some degree of normalcy. Collect data and insights so developers can build better — those are the first steps, the immediate, short-term stuff. Then, there are plans for the mid-term, where you weave in your green and blue infrastructure. And for the long-term?
Policy, says Naz. We need country-wide climate resilience planning tools. Like a national climate risk index — AECOM collaborated with US disaster response agency FEMA to develop a live map indicating risk. This is how you harness technology, says Naz. Artificial intelligence can arm you with speedier calculations, insights and flood models.
Speaking of policy, we’re also deep into planning for net zero — it was all over the COP 28 agenda. And it’s integral to most urban development plans.
Naz, who’s written the book on the Net Zero City — literally; she’s co-authored it with futurist Langdon Morris — says, ‘You cannot plan for net zero without taking climate resilience into account. We cannot build a decarbonised city, one which we can live in and thrive in, without factoring in future climate scenarios. It’d be like drawing up a blueprint with a massive blindside.’
So: one eye to the future
On average, climate hazards have cost the world USD 143 billion in the last two decades and caused 60,000 deaths. Unfortunately, these numbers will only rise over the next few years — studies indicate the global cost of climate change-related disasters could rise to USD 3.1 trillion per year by 2050.
Naz adds to this, ‘You’re not only building for a year from now, or ten years from now. You’re building for fifty years from now, a hundred years from now. We have to keep one eye on the past, and one to the future. We have to be concerned with legacy.’
So, yes, we might have been caught out this time. But if we future proof our cities now — and preparations do seem underway — it doesn’t have to be the same the next storm. Or the one after that — and sadly, come they will.
We’re past that point.
Davina Raisinghani | Oct 17, 2024
