Deepening Urban Resilience: Durban’s Multi-Sector Expansion of Flood Adaptation Strategies

The City of Durban, also known as eThekwini Municipality, has experienced three major flooding events over the past ten years (2017, 2019, 2022), which have had both localized impacts on informal settlements and city-wide consequences for infrastructure, besides multiple annual extreme weather events which occur at a smaller scale, but are very intense and destructive where they occur. Informal settlements such as Quarry Road West, Pholani, and Mzinyathi have experienced some of the most consequential impacts from these climate-driven rain and flood events. Informal communities like these are particularly vulnerable due to their limited access to urban services such as water, electricity, and waste management. Economic circumstances and a lack of available land typically force poorer residents to live in undesirable and unsafe settings with no legal claims to land ownership.

Building on the groundbreaking success of Phase 1 of this work, which established a community-based flood early warning system (CBFEWS) in the Quarry Road West community that saved hundreds of lives during the April 2022 floods which caused unprecedented damage in eThekwini Municipality, Phase 2 of this long-term initiative represents a significant expansion of this work into other informal communities.

At the core of this initiative is the EPIC approach, with the EPIC Durban program serving as a central platform through which students and faculty at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), in partnership with eThekwini Municipality, contribute directly to flood adaptation strategies. A key component of the EPIC Durban program has been the involvement of 52 postgraduate students from UKZN’s School of Built Environment and Development Studies. Through courses like Special Studies B and Environment and Development, these students have contributed vital work, including flood risk mapping and settlement profiling, design of climate communication tools in isiZulu and English, development of practical solutions like flood-resilient bridges, community workshops on disaster preparedness, food gardening with composting and evaluation of innovative sanitation systems.

In parallel, the INACCT (Designing Inclusive African Coastal City Resilience) Resilience project, led by ICLEI Africa in partnership with UKZN, eThekwini Municipality, Eduardo Mondlane University, in Mozambique and the Beira Mozambique local government, builds on this model by emphasizing collaborative urban resilience planning across coastal African cities. More information about the INACCT Resilience project can be found here.

Together, these collaborative streams are being integrated through the CBFEWS, with the intention to replicate this approach throughout the city, and potentially in many other African cities too.

This initiative also includes:

1. Expanding the life-saving early warning system to additional vulnerable communities, incorporating new technologies and community training programs to ensure wider participation and shared learning across settlements.

2. Restoring and rehabilitating damaged ecosystems to strengthen food sovereignty.
This includes community food gardens and composting initiatives designed to improve local food security and community well-being.

3. Strengthening ecosystem resilience through Community-Ecosystem-based Adaptation (CEBA). This involves riverbank stabilization efforts using indigenous plant species to prevent land erosion during floods, alongside community-led indigenous tree planting initiatives aimed at reducing urban heat during summer months.

4. Developing a risk profile of vulnerably located settlements in these two cities. In Durban, this will align with and support the City’s existing informal settlement categorization process, where low risk settlements can be upgraded with the provision of services, and high risk settlements can be prioritised for re-settlement.

5. Evaluating and upgrading waste management programs in informal communities, addressing a critical factor that exacerbates flooding when debris clogs natural drainage systems. This includes innovative partnerships with NPOs like Green Corridors and alignment with the national government’s Presidential Employment Programme (PEP) funding that supports Durban’s Incremental Upgrading Strategy.

6. Waste management efforts have also substantially reduced the amount of waste lying around the settlement, which in the past attracted vermin like rats, which in turn attracted highly venomous snake species, like the black mamba, presenting a risk to the community (albeit that these snakes were also providing a service). To respond to that threat, ten community members were trained as snake monitors to identify venomous species which were rescued by a local snake expert. With the removal of solid waste, snakes have become much less of an issue.

Supported by funding from the National Science Foundation (USA), START International, the Climate Adaptation and Resilience (CLARE) project, the INACCT Resilience project, and the Wellcome Trust, this multi-phase initiative represents Durban’s long-term commitment to building resilience in its informal settlements.

By addressing early warning systems, ecosystem rehabilitation, waste management, and policy integration, the success in Durban provides a replicable model for cities facing similar climate challenges.

The project’s legacy directs several primary areas for building upon its successes. Upscaling the community-based flood early warning system (CBFEWS) for floods to Durban’s entire high-risk area is a short-term priority capable of saving many lives from future violent weather and climate events.

The emphasis on integrating scientific research with local knowledge has opened new paths for urban resilience planning. With Durban continuing to grapple with the intersection of urbanization, inequality, climate change, and informality, this initiative is a great example of how universities can act as bridges between communities and policymakers. True resilience is rarely ever a product of top-down solutions but more often comes about from coalitions like this one that respects and embraces cross-cultural  experiences and knowledge in the face of shared threats.

Written by: Jonathan Kroeze