On a chilly January morning of 2023, as the sun's first rays descended over Joshimath, a small town in the Chamoli district of Uttarakhand, a sense of urgency filled the air. The residents of this pilgrim town were awakened by an unsettling reality!

Around a quarter of the town's 2,500 buildings developed cracked walls and tilting foundations. And now everywhere the eye went, it saw sinking structures, prompting the government to swing into action.

 
The Prime Minister’s Office immediately declared Joshimath a "landslide-subsidence zone", ordering the experts to formulate immediate and long-term strategies to tackle the issue at hand.

Sadly, it took such an unfortunate incident for the government to wake up to the warning calls of the same experts who had been informing them for years that such an incident would happen soon.

So, what exactly happened in Joshimath?

For this, we must first understand the concept of ground subsidence.

Ground subsidence refers to the gradual settling or abrupt sinking of the Earth's surface caused by the removal or displacement of materials beneath the surface.

Joshimath is 2,000 meters above sea level and sits atop dangerous grounds because it is built on the debris of an old landslide area.

However, the unplanned construction and development of the town has induced structural defects and damage in almost the entire ground underneath this town.

What led to Joshimath’s shaky grounds?

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1. Poor construction practices: Joshimath attracts lakhs of tourists every year on their way to Badrinath and other pilgrimage destinations. And so, tourism has been a major industry for the locals here. Because of this, there has been a lot of construction here in recent years.

The problem arises when most of it is unplanned and done without a proper urban plan. The countless construction projects have led to the destablization of the soil and clogged the underground water streams resulting in accumulation of water beneath the foundations of these buildings, leading to wobbly grounds.

2. Road Widening Work: Due to major road-widening projects in this area, indiscriminate cutting of trees has been reported multiple times in the last few years. Add to it, the roadwork has also led to the choking of natural water channels, which is in direct defiance of the government’s laid out principles of construction work in the mountain region.

3. Hydropower Project: Hills have always been a rich source of various ores and water. There are many hydropower projects already made and some that are in the making.

One such project, and allegedly a major cause of this sinking, is the the Tapovan-Vishnugad hydropower project that consists of a 12 km tunnel that was constructed through the hillside and was made using drill and blasting method.

This resulted in significant and immediate alterations to the hydraulics of the land leading to the shaky grounds.

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These are not speculations! The experts have time and again warned us about the ramifications of such unchecked activity in these volatile regions.

And now we are seeing them coming true!

As per the National Institute of Disaster Management, inadequate regulations and unsuitable zoning and planning decisions are responsible for this tragedy, and it will continue in other hill stations if the current malpractices are not corrected.

Moreover, builders and contractors frequently ignore the local geological and environmental factors in the bid to make profits.

In order to make construction more sustainable in mountain regions, we need to take into account how fragile such a region’s ecosystem is.

Even the smallest of the disturbances here can lead to serious disasters on a wide scale. This is what has happened in Joshimath, which has been subjected to decades of neglect by human activities.

So what is the way forward? How do we make sure that we don’t repeat the same mistakes of the past?

The answer is ‘proper urban planning’.

Let’s look at some indispensable steps that one will have to follow in order to ensure a robust urban planning in such regions.

Steps to Proper Urban Planning in Mountain Regions

1. Acquiring credible landslide-risk data: To ensure urban resilience towards land subsidence, it is crucial to conduct detailed mapping of the overall landslide risk.

Regions identified with a significant risk of landslides should be restricted from expanding large-scale infrastructure. It is essential to minimize human interference and adhere to the carrying capacity guidelines.

2. Flood-proofing: Urban planners will have to focus on improvement of sewerage and stormwater drain networks. It is crucial to revamp and expand the existing sewerage systems to facilitate effective drainage of wastewater in urban areas susceptible to flooding.

Regular desilting of rivers prone to overflow should be prioritized, accompanied by increased investment in flood-resilient infrastructure, such as river embankments and flood shelters.

3. Landslide Hazard Analysis & Mapping: This entails employing a robust location analytics platform, GIS (Geographic Information System), and use intricate datasets like Radar Imagery to examine the terrain, slope, and other influential factors.

This, in turn, will aid in identifying areas susceptible to landslides and determine where landslides have already taken place.

4. Land Management: What needs to be critically examined are the land conversion, preservation, and utilization patterns in order to strike a balance between agricultural and non-agricultural uses. By taking these factors into account, urban planners can make a rational planning and development framework.

5. Regional approach: Adoption of a regional approach is of utmost importance for ensuring conservation, preservation and development of hilly regions. Exclusive to each such area, this examination determines various limiting factors such as slope, soil characteristics, flora and fauna, vegetation, as well as the nature and structure of rocks and average rainfall. This data helps in classifying a region as per its sensitivity-levels. And this becomes the deciding factor in urban planning.

All in all, there might be a lot of profits to be made out of the rampant, unchecked construction for the involved parties, but the long-term risks are multifold and come at the cost of lives and irreversible damage to the environment.

If we don’t want another Joshimath incident to happen, we need to course-correct right now!

If only the concerned people had listened to the long-standing warnings from the experts, the tragedy of Joshimath could have been averted. But now, it’s time to learn and move ahead with full caution and 100% preparedness for correct urban planning.

Feature image: Source