Floodplains provide vital hydrological and ecological services, such as controlling erosion, filtering water, recharging aquifers, and protecting against floods while sustaining wildlife habitats. But developers, municipal authorities and the public frequently exploit these areas as accessible land for legal or unauthorised construction, leading to severe financial and environmental penalties. TreeTake takes a look…
The excavator's metal teeth bite into the soft alluvial mud of the Gomti riverbed. Under the harsh glare of halogen floodlights, the riparian reeds—natural silt traps that had stabilised these banks for generations—are ripped out by their roots and loaded into waiting dump trucks. In a few hours, a three-kilometre stretch of what was once an active, breathing floodplain resembles a militarised engineering zone. This is the front line of the Rs 7,710-crore Gomti Green Corridor Project, a massive four-lane, signal-free highway designed to slice directly through the river’s ecological buffer zone. For months, the official narrative painted this project as a masterstroke of eco-conscious urban rejuvenation.
To note, the Gomti Green Corridor Project is a massive, multi-phased urban infrastructure initiative in Lucknow executed by the Lucknow Development Authority (LDA). Valued at approximately Rs 7,710 crore, the project is designed to transform the banks of the Gomti River into a high-speed, signal-free traffic artery. The state administration promotes the Green Corridor as a solution to multiple urban issues:
1. Traffic relief: By handling over 100,000 daily vehicles and offering a bypass through the heart of the city, it aims to reduce internal street congestion by up to 40%.
2. Commercial & real estate integration: It opens up new commercial nodes, permitting river-facing high-rises, hotels, cafes, open-air theatres and recreational paths.
3. Flood security buffers: The state reports that the 11-kilometre heavy concrete embankment section between Pipraghat and Kisan Path acts as a structural shield, protecting nearly 500,000 residents in surrounding low-lying extensions from seasonal river floods.
Ecological scrutiny
The massive scale of the corridor project has made it a focal point for environmental scrutiny. Ecologists and whistleblowers point out that building major multi-lane roads, heavy flyover piers, and permanent concrete retaining walls directly on or adjacent to active floodplains threatens the natural, permeable dynamics of the Gomti River basin—altering its hydrology, trapping upstream runoff, and permanently separating the river from its natural groundwater aquifers. When Prof Venkatesh Dutta, a senior environmental scientist and long-standing member of the DGC, submitted his formal resignation, the carefully constructed public relations facade of the administration collapsed. His resignation was not merely an act of professional dissent; it was a structural whistleblower event that exposed the deep institutional rot within India's green governance.
"We were being asked to validate an ecological autopsy," Prof Dutta said. "The blueprints of the corridor were systematically withheld from independent scientific members until the contracts were signed and the heavy machinery was deployed on the mudflats. We were not there to advise; we were there to rubber-stamp the destruction of our own river." His letter to DGC officials cited several critical concerns, including concealment of documents. Prof Dutta was repeatedly denied access to project reports like the DPR and EIA for the Gomti Green Corridor, preventing independent review. He noted that without these, his continued association was unjustified.
Sidestepping dissent: Despite his environmental objections to the highway expansion on the Gomti floodplain, the proposal was pushed through without his knowledge or consensus, reducing academic members to rubber stamps.
Ecological warnings: He cautioned that concrete embankments in eco-sensitive zones restricted the river's channel, disrupted groundwater interactions and impaired flood management.Retrospective clearances: Construction advanced through multiple phases before statutory clearances were pursued, making environmental laws mere paperwork.
Unaddressed pollution: The capital was channelled into concrete infrastructure while 45 drains continued to discharge 260 MLD of raw sewage into the river, with only 53% of households connected to sewerage.
The administrative response to his exit followed a familiar playbook: official silence paired with an accelerated construction schedule. But the systemic questions raised by his departure refuse to wash away with the seasonal tides. How did a vital ecological sponge become prime real estate? And why is India’s urban planning machinery systematically hardwired to treat living rivers as dead drainage canals?
Speaking to TreeTake, Prof Dutta said: “When we speak of an ‘urban river’, we are referring to the section of the river that flows through an urban area. It is not merely the river itself but its catchment area that becomes ‘urban’ due to the immense population pressure—urban sprawl, encroachment and the emergence of new colonies.” He said generally, the situation was that India was facing a land crisis; the population was growing, and there was an increasing demand for housing. People migrated from rural to urban areas in search of jobs or for better education. This led to the formation of settlements—often informal ones. Educated people were also increasingly involved in encroachment on urban utility areas.
“Urban local bodies—such as municipal corporations or land development authorities—carve out land parcels. They often reclaim land from the riverbed because floodplains in India have not yet been clearly defined. The definition established in 2016 defined it as the area inundated during a ‘hundred-year flood’—meaning the maximum extent of land submerged by floodwaters over a century. No construction should take place or concrete structures be built in this zone. However, the Ganga Order of 2016 is now being amended because many municipal corporations and development authorities (like the Delhi Development Authority) have built structures on floodplains. They have developed commercial complexes and other facilities on land that originally belonged to the river,” he claimed.
He said the failure to properly define the floodplain had created confusion; the ‘active floodplain’ was now sometimes defined merely as the area inundated by rainfall within the last five years. But if one looked at the records—for instance, the Mandakini River—the water reached levels corresponding to a hundred-year flood event. That was the true extent of the water. One might think, "The river has been drying for 20 years, so it will stay dry; let's just develop housing plots on it." But that was not so. He added: “Regarding a river's climatic record, we must look at long-term data—ideally spanning a hundred years—to see the extent of the water's reach during that period; this is known as the High Flood Level (HFL). We have recorded numerous HFL markers for the Gomti River within the city. If land scarcity prevents us from leaving that entire hundred-year flood zone undeveloped, we should at least adopt a precautionary approach. Instead of constructing concrete structures—like housing complexes, colleges, green corridors, roads, or highways—we should develop ‘soft structures.’ These could be open grounds or golf courses, allowing floodwaters to flow in, spread out and recede naturally.” He said this was known as ‘riparian land’—an area subject to periodic flooding. “The issue arises when authorities look to pool or acquire land for development; since the river flows through the heart of the city, the land along its banks becomes prime, high-value real estate.”
“Take Gomti Nagar, for instance—it is already settled. Now, major builders are looking to develop areas downstream near Ekana. They fail to realise that the open stretch of a river provides ecosystem services worth approximately Rs 5000 crore annually. This statement is scientifically valid and proven regarding Lucknow, considering the Gomti flows for 101 kilometres through the Lucknow area; the ecological value of this 101-kilometre-stretch amounts to Rs 5,000 crore— ecosystem services worth Rs 5,000 crore that the river would provide if the area were left undeveloped.” He said if one left the 100-year flood line area undisturbed, there was an annual benefit of Rs 5,000 crore, known as indirect ecosystem services—such as climate regulation, groundwater recharge, and flood control. By leaving the floodplain open, flood control was naturally achieved, mitigating the damage that would otherwise occur.
“Consider the damage we cause—the visible destruction of infrastructure due to inundation. Then there are the invisible losses—potential groundwater recharge, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity enhancement—that people fail to see. These have been quantified, yet urban planners often do not grasp this; they simply see ‘vacant land.’ They view it as vacant land rather than a floodplain. Floodplains belong to the river; they are formed over hundreds of thousands of years, and their deposits facilitate groundwater recharge. The floodplain serves as our city's water sanctuary. If we continue to encroach upon floodplains, we will inevitably face a water crisis; we won't even have water to drink,” he said.
Prof Dhruv Sen Singh of the geology department of Lucknow University said the maximum and minimum discharge of the river should be kept in mind before any kind of construction along a river, even dams. “We don't know when the river will take a destructive form. So, we should construct along the Gomti River in such a way that it can flow. If we do a discharge analysis from the Central Water Commission of 30-40 years, we will find that the Gomti does not have the maximum flow all the time. When the maximum flow comes, it can also break the dam. But we are just living in the present.” He added: “The river valley is very wide, and the channel is very thin. The channel is that part of the valley which is filled with water. But the river made its valley wide so that when water flows in the river, it does not flood both sides of the river, and there is no loss in the floodplain in front of the valley. What we have done is that we have not left the floodplain of the rivers. I have been to Chambal, Betwa, Kenso, Dasan, Rapti, Ghagra, Yamuna, Ganga, Gomti and Gandak, all the banks. Now there is no floodplain in any river. Now there is a valley in the river, and we are also encroaching on that valley.” He said any form of concretisation like riverfronts or corridors not only reduced the water-holding capacity of the river but also adversely affected aquatic flora and fauna. The area of groundwater that the river could recharge would also be reduced.
However, known river activist and convenor of the RiverConnect Campaign in Agra, Brij Khandelwal, sounded a note of dissent. He said, “I don't agree. I demand concrete embankments on both sides, so that nothing can enter the river. Please study the Sabarmati model in Ahmedabad. Rivers need to be regularly cleaned, dredged, and desilted to increase water storage capacity and to de-choke aquifers. Water must seep and percolate through the riverbed to raise the water table. Toxic industrial effluents and sewage have hardened river beds. All over the world, this is the only model. The banks must be protected by thick walls.”
Still, most experts agree that the core crisis of the concrete floodplain lies in the absolute defiance of basic hydrology. A river is not merely a pipeline designed to carry water from point A to point B; it is an integrated, dynamic system that requires lateral space to expand, contract, filter, and recharge. When a floodplain is covered in concrete, the river loses its ability to breathe. Riparian zones act as natural ecological shock absorbers. During heavy monsoons, the soft earth of the floodplain absorbs millions of litres of excess water, keeping the water table high while preventing downstream surges. In the dry summer months, this absorbed water slowly seeps back into the main channel, ensuring that the river remains perennial. By encasing the banks in concrete embankments, urban planners create a dual disaster: The first is upstream toxic stagnation. Without the natural filtering action of wetland vegetation, urban sewage and industrial effluents are trapped within the city limits. The river ceases to flow naturally, transforming into a series of stagnant, toxic pools that breed disease and decimate local aquatic life. Secondly, there are downstream torrential surges. As the concrete walls restrict the river's width, the water is forced into a narrow, high-velocity channel. During peak rainfall, this accelerated volume rushes downstream with immense destructive energy, turning seasonal monsoons into catastrophic flooding events for rural communities situated lower in the basin. Furthermore, the loss of vertical permeability breaks the connection with local groundwater. In a city like Lucknow, which relies heavily on deep borewells for its municipal drinking water supply, cementing the primary recharge zone is equivalent to slow-motion hydrological suicide.
Not an isolated incident
The tragedy unfolding along the Gomti is not an isolated incident. It is a recurring symptom of a systemic, pan-India urban planning failure. Across the country, natural drainage systems are being aggressively built over, turning seasonal rains into regular urban disasters.
1-In Bengaluru, the historic network of Rajakaluves (interconnected storm-water drains and valley zones) has been systematically choked by luxury apartments, IT parks and arterial bypasses. When the city experienced intense rainfall bouts, these concretised channels could no longer absorb or redirect the runoff. The result was a catastrophic gridlock that submerged the country's silicon hub, proving that no amount of economic wealth can override the laws of hydrology.
2-Similarly, Gurugram was built over the natural drainage channels of the Aravalli hills. The seasonal streams and local depressions that once collected rainwater have been levelled to create high-rises and expressways. Today, even a brief 30-minute downpour turns the city’s major intersections into waist-deep rivers, trapping millions of commuters and causing widespread economic losses.
3-The devastating floods that hit Chennai in recent years were directly linked to the systemic reclamation of the Pallikaranai marshland. Once a massive, sprawling wetland that easily absorbed the ocean surges and cyclonic rainfalls of the Bay of Bengal, the marsh has been reduced to a fraction of its original size to host mass housing projects and tech corridors. Without its natural sponge, the city has no defence against extreme weather events.
Making room for the river
Is it possible to develop a modern, connected city without destroying its rivers? The answer from global environmental engineering is a resounding yes. But it requires a fundamental shift from engineering against nature to designing with nature. Rather than pouring concrete to create uniform promenades, progressive cities are turning to bio-engineering. By using geo-textiles, local bamboo root networks and native riparian grasses, engineers can stabilise riverbanks against erosion without reducing soil permeability. These natural banks adjust dynamically to changing water levels, absorb urban runoff pollutants through phytoremediation, and preserve vital subsurface aquifer connections. Urban planning must integrate Sponge City concepts at the neighbourhood level. This includes mandating permeable paving blocks for all public walkways and parking lots, constructing bioswales along existing highways to capture and filter surface runoff before it reaches primary rivers, and strictly protecting local community ponds and wetlands to distribute the hydrological load across the entire landscape rather than forcing a single river to handle all urban drainage.
Conclusion
The concrete corridors currently cutting through India's floodplains are monuments to a deeply flawed understanding of human progress. We are treating our water bodies as real estate opportunities, ignoring the clear scientific warnings that nature eventually reclaims its space. We can no longer afford to remain passive spectators while real estate interests pave over our primary defences against climate change. A city cannot survive without a living, breathing river. If we refuse to give our rivers the room they require to flow, filter, and expand, we must prepare for a future where our multi-crore expressways become rivers themselves—submerged under the unstoppable weight of our own ecological mistakes. The choice is no longer between development and conservation. The choice is between a sustainable, living city and a beautifully manicured, concrete disaster.
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