Street Rhythms in Dharavi: The Cyclical Flood Adaptation in Coastal Urban Slums

Abstract

In developing countries, coastal urban slums are acknowledged as highly susceptible areas to the consequences of climate extremes. With a limited capacity to absorb and prevent rising waters, coastal slums experience recurring floods. This challenge has led slum dwellers to develop local adaptation measures over the years. 

The public space embedded within the slum morphology provide for spatial interplay between the floods and measures of adaptation. Formerly perceived as a threat, the excess of water is evolving into an opportunity. In these contexts, streets provide for essential physical space in the slum fabric, also useful to address the effects of floods. The form of the street allows temporary cyclical occupations that relate to the activities of the slum dwellers, the daily or seasonal rhythms, in which water level plays a lead role. Thus, the character of the street is both defined by the fixed section and the cyclical adaptive measures and elements that compose the liveable space. 

Dharavi, in Mumbai, consists of a highly diverse informal settlement comprising streets that support the livelihoods of different communities, such as fishers in Koliwada, potters in Kumbharwada, and laundry workers in Dhobi Ghat, among others. In this paper, the diversity of street form and cycles is decoded and translated by interpretative drawings based on cartographic and collected images. 

This study seeks to showcase the crucial role of slum streets, as urban morphological elements, in addressing cyclical floods. It contributes to the wider research into the typification of flood adaptation measures and the systematisation of a lexicon of flood adaptation measures for coastal urban slums.