- The National Water Resource Directorate (DNRH) indicates as a new cause of urban floods the building of houses and infrastructures aurhorised by the municipal authorities on top of water lines, because of lack of knowledge
By Aurélio Muianga
Maputo - (MOZTIMES) – In the present rainy season, about 3.5 million people could be affected by urban flooding due to construction authorised by the municipal authorities on top of water lines.
Of this number, 300,000 will need direct assistance in accommodation, food and basic hygiene material.
The head of the Department of River Basin Management in the DNRH, Agostinho Vilanculos, gave this information in the context of the weather forecast for the rainy season, which runs from October 2024 to April 2025.
He said that building on top of water lines or hydrographical systems are regarded as new causes of urban flooding, which cyclically affects millions of people, because, due to lack of knowledge, these infrastructures, unfortunately authorised by the municipal authorities, block the natural path of waters to the sea.
"Disorderly constructions on top of hydrographical systems show that the municipalities lack knowledge of urban ideology ", argued Agostinho Vilanculos, as he looked at the likelihood of urban floods in the present rainy season.
INAM envisages normal rainfall in the first part of the rainy season (October to December) and normal to above normal rainfall in th second period (January to March).
"As the institution that manages water resources, we are forecasting a high risk of urban flooding with about 3.5 million people affected in the country’s municipalities, of whom 300,000 will need direct support”, said Vilanculos. He stressed that in the interconnected municipalities of Maputo and Matola, 70-80,000 people will be directly affected.
Vilanculos said that the new causes of urban flooding were discovered through work done by the DNRH after the Minister of Transport and Communications, Mateus Magala, asked for investigation of the real causes of this climate phenomenon.
As Vilanculos explained, the hydrographical system is a series of small tributaries which drain water into the main tributary and have a single exit. "Hence the branches are joined into a single point, and if this only way out is blocked, the water accumulates, reaches a certain level and then spreads out. These systems are formed by water lines which, in fact, are intermittent rivers, and, because they are seasonal, they are only noticed during the rainy season", he explained.
Maputo city has eleven systems, including the system in the downtown area, where institutions and commercial establishments are knocked out of operation for two or more days whenever above normal rains fall.
On the periphery of the city there are eleven systems, notably those of Aeroportos de Maputo, Magoanine and Costa do Sol, which submerge the neighbourhoods of the same names, almost throughout the year, forcing the residents to seek assistance at accommodation centres.
The Maputo City Counsellor for Social Welfare, Anabela Inguane, told MOZ TIMES that the Maputo municipality, with an area of 346,77 km2, and a population of 1.088.449, according to the 2017 Census, currently still has 480 households (corresponding to 1,815 people) who have been living in 13 accommodation centres since the 2023/2024 rainy season.
The Matola municipality, with six hydrographical systems, is facing flooding in almost its entire territory, covering an area of 373 km2 and with a population of 1,032,197. This is mainly because the storm water drainage systems are blocked.
The Municipal Council has granted land use titles (DUATs) to some infrastructures, such as homes, schools, hospitals and warehouses, even though they have been built on top of hydrographical systems.
Urban declaration of emergency
Agostinho Vilanculos advises that, in case of necessity, the municipal authorities should declare an urban flooding emergency, through which they could access financial and technical support from donors in order to build major drainage channels.
"On their own, the municipalities do not have the technical and financial capacity to solve the problems of flooding. Right now, they should set up technical offices for questions of urbanisation”, he stressed.
According to Vilanculos, Maputo city, for example, needs at least eleven drainage channels with the same capacity as the system on Joaquim Chissano Avenue, which drains water to the Infulene Valley. (AM)
