Nairobi: A city running out of time to fix itself

Ainsworth School field submerged with flood after recent light showers. About 900 students were sent home and missed classes as a result  the school had to be closed indefinitely.  [Robert Tomno,Standard]

On the night of March 26 this year, the heavens opened up, unleashing a torrential downpour  that overwhelmed the city for days on end.

Data collected through several meteorological stations in Nairobi following the six-hour intense downpour was alarming. The Wilson Airport meteorological station recorded 160 millimetres (mm) of rain, 145 mm at Moi Air Base, Dagoretti (112 mm), and Kabete station (117mm). In short, the city witnessed over 534 mm of rainfall in a span of three to five hours!

By the time the waters receded into the Nairobi River basin, about 30 people were dead, either swept away into the river or electrocuted following collapsed power lines. Many more suffered serious injuries.

The aftermath of the flooding became clear as scores of city residents woke up to find their homes and vehicles submerged in water, the losses running into millions.

Public infrastructure was destroyed and transport disrupted. At the height of the floods, the government deployed a multi-agency response team including officers from the Kenya Defence Forces to rescue and evacuate stranded individuals.

Intense floods

At Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, flood waters affected operations with flights either cancelled or diverted to other regional airports.

Unfortunately, this was not the first, neither will it be the last time for the city to be under such intense floods. Over the years, rains in Nairobi have always come with similar tragedies; death and destruction with low lying areas such as South C resembling inland lakes.

In Nairobi, about 60 per cent of residents live in informal settlements, inhabiting flood-prone areas and river banks in Kibera, Mukuru, and Dandora, raising the scale of potential losses. This is no coincidence since the 1927 and 1948 Master Plans were based on racial segregation that confined Africans to regions that exposed them to adverse living conditions.

Experts are quick to point out that while rains have always been with us, the systems meant to mitigate excessive flooding are either non-existent or have collapsed. In either case, they say human activities are to blame, rather than natural factors such as climate change, for the current disasters.

“The city has seen rapid, unplanned urban growth that reduces natural drainage and increases impermeable surfaces through more concrete thus heightening the city’s vulnerability to flash floods,” says Dr George Mwaniki, World Resources Institute country director for Kenya.

Mwaniki says research done on rainfall patterns over the last 20 years has indicated that the city has not received what could be termed as extreme rains but what has changed is the city’s ability to absorb even moderate amounts of runoff water that turns streets into rivers after less than an hour of rain.

“Rainfall has not increased exponentially over the years neither are we witnessing an issue of severe climate change in the city. What we have is an infrastructure issue. For example, we are building more and better roads but we are not sure of what to do with the excess runoff water,” he says.

Runoff water

For a developer to get construction approvals, a clear plan on how to deal with runoff water has to be submitted to county authorities. However, such developers submit plans showing how the water will drain into the nearby road’s drainage system which, according to Mwaniki, was built to handle runoff water from the roads and not from buildings.

He argues that since developers usually peg their property value appreciation to a road construction, bodies like Kenya Urban Roads Authority (Kura), or the county government ought to demand a fraction of such capital appreciation for drainage expansion.

“Kura uses public funds for road construction yet the developer pegs his property appreciation to such a road. While such a move may not be popular, Kura ought to reclaim some of this value increase and channel the money to drainage expansion and thus mitigate for more flooding,” he says.

Experts in the built environment say poor planning that encroaches on wetlands and floodplains amplifies the flooding risks within the city. For example, they say while developers adhered to the ratio of building footprint within a given plot years ago, such measures have been abandoned as unscrupulous developers fill their entire plots with structures.

“Building planning enforcement should go to neighbourhood levels where ground coverage and plot ratios ought to be enforced. What we have now in many parts of the city is a systemic failure where we are building with no sense with areas like Kilimani, Kileleshwa and South C are slowly turning to urban slums,” says Emma Miloyo, an architect and former president of the Architectural Association of Kenya.

Ignoring zoning guidelines and filling entire plots with structures, she says, adds to a lower quality of life due to diminished air circulation and a deficiency in some minerals such as Vitamin D due to sun’s blockage.

“Buildings can make you sick and Nairobi continues to see an upsurge in respiratory cases. You have seen the problem in places like Pipeline in Embakasi where buildings are jampacked leaving no space even for the sun to penetrate through leading to poor quality of life,” she says. “We just build and hope that God will save us.”

While commissioning a land use study and policy plan 25 years ago, the city authorities admitted that poor planning over the years had led to a near collapse of systems that made the city habitable while acknowledging that previous master plans expired without full implementation.

“It has been noted that the City of Nairobi is experiencing rapid transformation resulting in many challenges such as unplanned urban growth, inadequate infrastructure, deterioration of the urban form and incidents of urban poverty,” the report reads.

“This phenomenon has developed despite the 1973 Metropolitan Growth Strategy which not only expired in the year 2000, but was never fully implemented for lack of necessary political will, commitment and inadequate resources.”

In the city, notes the report, development of residential houses and offices is always demand-driven, rather than infrastructure-driven with no reciprocal expansion of roads, water, and sewer reticulation systems leading to loss of vegetation while encroaching on riparian reserves.

While addressing the Nairobi County Assembly in April this year, President William Ruto decried the ever lethargic approach to the city’s management over the years.

Poor planning

“Nairobi has been a city of immense promise trapped by chronic dysfunction. A city of extraordinary potential suffocated by disorder, delayed by indecision, undermined by poor planning, and held hostage by interests that profit from chaos,” said President Ruto before listing the many ills bedevilling the city.

 “A capital city where flooding still kills our people. A capital city where garbage too often defines neighbourhoods. A capital city where roads are congested, drainage is broken, sewerage is overstretched, planning is weak, and basic order is too often absent. A capital city where too many residents still live without dignity in the very city whose labour, talent, and enterprise sustain our national economy.”

The President promised actions that he said will restore Nairobi’s lost glory: “If roads must be expanded, they will be expanded. If encroachments must be removed, they will be removed. If drainage channels must be cleared, they will be cleared. If illegal structures must come down, they will come down. If systems must be reorganised to restore order, they will be reorganised.”

Only time will tell if Nairobi continues to function as a modern, global metropolitan or if it is living on borrowed time. [e-mail]