Durban - The BRICS grouping has been urged to share knowledge on making cities water-resilient against floods and drought to transform the lives of people living in developing countries.
The BRICS urbanisation summit in Durban, “Advancing urban resilience for sustainable cities and towns for future generations”, brought together key leaders from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa to play a significant role in localising the UN Sustainable Development Goals and implementing actions at the local level to address challenges related to sustainable development, urban resilience and rapid urbanisation.
Yesterday, the focus was on water resilience, with delegates from BRICS countries and international entities sharing ideas and innovations that have made some cities resilient to the threats posed to their water systems.
The eThekwini Municipality is currently embroiled in court action after last year’s floods, with allegations that the Metro failed to maintain, repair, replace or install the necessary infrastructure to prevent the flow of sewage or untreated effluent into eThekwini’s waterways, rivers and beaches.
The Metro responded by saying last year’s floods had affected the ability to comply with environmental laws and that the floods resulted in devastating consequences for the network, which suffered significant damage.
Yesterday Gong Daoxiao, China’s director of the Research Institute of Urban Water Treatment and Engineering, expanded on the sponge city concept, which is a new urban construction model for flood management, strengthening ecological infrastructure and drainage systems.
The system was first proposed by Chinese researchers in early 2000 and accepted by the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council as urbanism policy in 2014.
“In 2013 President Xi Jinping first proposed the idea in response to climate change and extreme weather challenges. We have implemented this in a natural way, using storm water systems and natural resources to build these sponge cities.”
Gong said China had relied on ancient knowledge in guiding the wisdom of modern water management.
“The sponge cities have solved the problems of urban development in a modern way and contributed to the urban development of cities.”
He said the pilot project had started in 30 cities with exploratory operations.
“We first started with policy, then a national level technical guide for the construction of a sponge city, using innovation in the planning and design.”
He said this was an integral part of economic development and by 2025, each city will have their own policy and system.
Gong said they were willing to work with BRICS countries in a joint system aimed at making cities more water resilient.
Mbulelo Tshangana, director-general at Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, said a preliminary report on the floods in eThekwini had revealed that the damage caused to roads was R5.6 billion, housing R1.6bn, billions of rand in other damage and 248 schools were damaged.
“Security of water supply attracts investors and eThekwini’s water supply now is more resilient but remember that since 2016, it has borne the brunt of waves of floods.
“Data is meaningless if we do not change our programmes or policies.”
Russia’s Maria Sinichich – head of Comprehensive Territorial Development Department, Ministry of Construction, Housing and Utilities – said Russia was working on modernising its existing infrastructure.
“We have 800 projects at the moment and thanks to the implementation, more than 94% of the population have access to clean water.
“The main issue is financing and this is done through state loans, private sources and internal sources. The state and private partnership allows for money to go to other priority projects,” said Sinichich.
Dhesigen Naidoo, Adaptation Lead, Presidential Climate Commission said more knowledge sharing was needed across BRICS countries.
“Another 24 countries could join BRICS and we need a joint knowledge platform in all the languages so that we can then share this knowledge in our own environments.
“Investment platforms are key and we need to accelerate the innovative financing models that are already at play.”
Naidoo said a BRICS climate resilient water group needed to be set up to facilitate the group’s ideals of transformation of the economies of the developing world.