Did the Sabarmati riverfront make Ahmedabad more vulnerable?

 

Currently living in Los Angeles, I find myself missing Ahmedabad. Not because I miss living through the city's recent devastating floods—which, experts say, resulted from a combination of extreme meteorological events and chronic urban infrastructure bottlenecks—but because I am unable to make an on-the-spot assessment of the disaster.

Since buying a flat in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur area in 2000, I have witnessed several episodes of urban flooding. This time, however, I had to rely on media reports, conversations with experts and former officials, neighbours, and the WhatsApp groups of which I am a member. Piecing together these accounts, a disturbing picture emerged.

The city's worst flooding occurred during the torrential rainfall between July 23 and July 27, 2026. The heaviest downpour came on July 23, when Ahmedabad received nearly seven inches of rain in just two hours. In some parts of the city, rainfall exceeded 22 inches over two to three days.

Vejalpur was among the worst-hit localities, receiving nearly 18 inches of rainfall within 24 hours. Bopal, Ghuma, Ambli, Bodakdev and Jivraj Park also experienced severe inundation.

In the residential society where I own a flat, home to nearly 650 families, no one was able to leave the premises because floodwaters engulfed the approach roads and entered the entire complex. Parking areas were submerged, leaving hundreds of cars and two-wheelers partially underwater and causing extensive damage.

Sadly, ours was only one among hundreds of affected housing societies. More than 300 locations across Ahmedabad witnessed severe flooding. In low-lying saucer-shaped areas such as Bopal and Ghuma, floodwaters remained as deep as three feet for nearly three days.

Ahmedabad received more than 11 inches of rain within a single 24-hour period, marking the city's highest single-day July rainfall this century. Some areas recorded nearly 40 to 45 per cent of their average annual rainfall in just one day.

Soon after reading the news, I received an unexpected message from noted environmental expert Himanshu Thakkar. He wanted to know whether the Sabarmati Riverfront—often showcased as a model of urban development—had contributed to Ahmedabad's flooding.

When I called him, he was cautious.

"I don't yet know," he said. "But the videos circulating on social media raise several important questions."

His first concern was whether the city's stormwater drainage network had functioned as intended. All stormwater drains are designed to discharge into the Sabarmati. Did they? Were the outfalls blocked?

He pointed out that the Sabarmati Riverfront is sustained largely by water diverted from the Narmada Canal because, for much of the year, the Sabarmati itself carries little natural flow. If the 11-kilometre riverfront stretch was already full, where could stormwater go during such an extreme rainfall event?

Thakkar also questioned whether the riverfront's concrete embankments had reduced the river's carrying capacity, thereby worsening urban flooding.

Another environmentalist, Mahesh Pandya, agreed that flooding was inevitable given the extraordinary rainfall—the fourth-highest single-day total recorded in nearly a century. However, he argued that the scale of inundation reflected years of poor urban planning.

According to him, authorities have allowed extensive construction over natural drainage channels and groundwater recharge zones. Even newly created flood-mitigation structures, such as Vastrapur Lake, failed to perform effectively because drainage pipelines did not adequately channel stormwater into them.

Like Thakkar, Pandya also questioned why the gates of the Vasna Barrage were not opened earlier to release water from the Sabarmati Riverfront.

A former government official I contacted broadly agreed with this assessment.

According to him, water levels at the barrage rose above 134-135 feet—well beyond the safe operating level of around 128 feet—because the riverfront stretch was already filled with Narmada water. As river levels rose, stormwater outfalls became submerged. Instead of discharging into the river, stormwater backed up through Ahmedabad's trunk drainage network, flooding major roads such as SG Highway, the 132-Feet Ring Road and Bopal.

He added that the Sabarmati riverbed has not been adequately desilted or deepened in recent years. Heavy silt carried downstream from upstream reservoirs has gradually reduced the river's storage capacity, allowing water levels to rise much more rapidly during intense rainfall or sudden releases.

Urban planners argue that the Sabarmati Riverfront has fundamentally altered the river's hydrology.

Before the project, the Sabarmati was a seasonal river with a broad, braided sandy channel varying from about 300 metres to more than 425 metres in width. The riverfront reclaimed over 200 hectares of riverbed by constructing concrete retaining walls, reducing the river's effective width to a fixed 263 metres.

Natural rivers rely on wide floodplains to spread, slow and temporarily store floodwaters. By replacing these floodplains with concrete promenades and commercial development, Ahmedabad substantially reduced the river's capacity to absorb sudden surges in water volume.

Ironically, while the riverfront's retaining walls were designed to prevent the Sabarmati from overflowing into adjacent neighbourhoods, they may have created another flood mechanism altogether.

During intense rainfall, river levels rise rapidly within the narrowed channel. If the Vasna Barrage gates are not opened quickly enough, the river submerges stormwater outfall pipes. Once these outfalls are underwater, stormwater can no longer drain into the river. Instead, it backs up through the city's drainage system, flooding roads, basements and low-lying neighbourhoods.

The problem is compounded by Ahmedabad's relentless urban expansion.

Large parts of western Ahmedabad—including Vejalpur, Bodakdev, Thaltej, Sindhu Bhavan Road, Shela and South Bopal—have replaced natural absorption surfaces with concrete and asphalt.

I have personally witnessed this transformation.

A massive residential complex that now stands in Vejalpur occupies what was once an open depression that naturally collected monsoon runoff. Following the devastating earthquake of January 26, 2001, large quantities of construction debris were dumped into this low-lying area. Within a few years, the land had been levelled and apartment blocks had replaced what had once served as a natural flood basin.

Even the society where I live occupies a similar saucer-shaped depression. Despite recharge wells and other interventions, rainwater continues to accumulate there during every heavy monsoon.

This reflects a much larger environmental tragedy.

Over the past few decades, hundreds of water bodies in and around Ahmedabad have disappeared or been converted into urban infrastructure as the city expanded without integrating natural drainage systems into development plans.

Researchers, including urban planner Dr. Mansee Bal-Bhargava, estimate that the greater Ahmedabad region had around 630 lakes and ponds in 1999. Today, only about 122 to 143 functional lakes remain—an approximately 80 per cent decline in the city's blue infrastructure.

In 2025, the National Green Tribunal issued notices concerning 37 lakes that had completely disappeared through encroachment and land conversion.

Historic municipal records indicate that Ahmedabad itself had around 204 to 207 lakes in 1960. Nearly half have since been filled, built over or neglected.

Many former lakes have simply been reclassified as revenue land and allocated for other purposes, including the Ahmedabad-Mumbai Bullet Train corridor, police housing, government offices, warehouses and civic infrastructure.

In rapidly urbanising areas such as Thaltej, Bopal, Bodakdev and Sola, countless unrecorded ponds and wetlands have disappeared beneath high-rise residential projects and commercial complexes. Feeder canals, including the Kharicut Canal, have become clogged with garbage and construction debris, depriving lakes of inflows and ultimately leading to their disappearance.

Even surviving lakes such as Vastrapur, Kankaria and Memnagar have undergone extensive beautification. Concrete embankments, paved walkways and lined lakebeds have replaced their naturally porous edges.

While these lakes may look attractive, they no longer function as effective groundwater recharge zones or flood buffers. Many of their natural feeder channels have been severed by roads and urban development, greatly reducing their capacity to absorb heavy rainfall.

The recent floods should therefore not be viewed merely as an unprecedented weather event. They are also the consequence of decades of planning decisions that steadily reduced Ahmedabad's natural resilience.

Extreme rainfall may have triggered the disaster. But whether it had to become such a catastrophe remains a question that deserves serious public debate.