Chennai, one of India’s most flood-prone metros, is experiencing increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events due to climate change. Recurrent urban flooding – particularly in the Kosasthalaiyar Basin-threatens lives, livelihoods, infrastructure, and economic productivity.
To address this, the Government of Tamil Nadu, with support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), has launched the Integrated Urban Flood Management for the Chennai-Kosasthalaiyar Basin Project. The project aims to:
- Upgrade flood protection infrastructure while enabling groundwater recharge.
- Improve institutional preparedness of the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) and local communities for urban flood events.
- Ensure long-term sustainability by strengthening operational and maintenance (O&M) systems for urban drainage infrastructure.
Our Role
We are engaged in the Institutional Strengthening and Reform Consultant to:
- Integrate climate risk profiling and future climate scenarios into the planning and implementation of flood management strategies.
- Support policy-level interventions that align with regional climate resilience frameworks and disaster mitigation cooperation.
- Identify institutional gaps within GCC and design a comprehensive roadmap to enhance capacity for flood preparedness, response, and system maintenance.
- Facilitate cross-sectoral collaboration across municipal, state, and multilateral agencies to ensure climate-adaptive, inclusive, and sustainable outcomes.
Through our work, we are enabling GCC to move from reactive flood response to proactive, risk-informed flood management – grounded in long-term resilience and institutional readiness.
