Blr Floods - HISTORY MATTERS!

Summary

Join the captivating exploration into why Bengaluru experiences flooding in the series by Bangalore Walks. Delve into the geographical setup of the city, located on high grounds with three distinct valleys directing rainwater flow. Through historic engineering, the city once managed rainwater effectively by creating tanks, which are artificial storage structures as opposed to natural lakes, to capture and utilize seasonal rain for agriculture and daily needs. In this episode, discover the ancient water management techniques at Vibhutipura and learn about Bangalore's lack of natural lakes. Unveil how our ancestors respected and engineered solutions for their water scarcity challenges, leading to a well-functioning water management system now in the face of changing times.

Highlights

• Explore how Bengaluru’s geography affects water flow and leads to flooding 🌊.
• Learn the difference between Bangalore's tanks and natural lakes 🏞️.
• Discover ancient water management systems that Bangalore used to rely on 🏺.
• See how Vibhutipura tank functioned historically to manage rainwater 🌧️.
• Uncover the surprising number of 'lakes' in Bangalore—an engaging quiz question 🤔.
• Revel in the enduring engineering marvels of ancient Bangaloreans as you walk through history 🚶‍♂️.

Key Takeaways

• Bengaluru floods because of its unique geography where water channels into low-lying valleys, notably Mahadevapura 🌧️.
• Historically, Bengaluru managed rain with man-made tanks, not natural lakes 🚫.
• Vibhutipura Tank showcases ancient sustainable water management practices 💧.
• Bangalore's tanks were crucial for watering crops like rice and ragi 🌾.
• Tanks in Bengaluru were seasonal, playing roles in community activities during dry spells 🎮.
• Understanding historical water management can teach us valuable lessons today 🏺.

Overview

In this enlightening video, the host takes us on a journey to understand why Bengaluru floods and how the city historically managed this challenge. The tale begins with the geographical quirks of this high-altitude city—Bengaluru is situated in such a way that all rainwater naturally channels into its valleys, flooding low-lying areas like Mahadevapura.

Interestingly, the city has no natural lakes but rather depends on engineered tanks to store rainwater. These tanks, many built centuries ago, are a testament to human ingenuity in water management. Through engaging storytelling, we learn how these tanks once supported agriculture and the life of millions by collecting rainwater during monsoons.

Bangalore's history of water management imparts critical lessons for today’s urban planners, highlighting the need for respect and care for our water resources. This exploration helps us appreciate the importance of sustainable practices and gives insight into future solutions that could be revived or reimagined from the past innovations.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Overview The chapter titled 'Introduction and Overview' begins with enthusiasm toward the positive reception of the previous video. The speaker encourages viewers to watch part one, if they haven't already, to comprehend the ongoing discussion fully. In this chapter, the plan is outlined which includes exploring interesting maps, engaging in a quiz, visiting an ancient temple, and venturing into unexplored territories. These activities are part of the larger endeavor to understand the flooding issues in Bengaluru, specifically focusing on the Mahadevpura area.
• 00:30 - 02:00: Geography of Bengaluru: Understanding the City's Topography Bengaluru, located in a valley, is surrounded on three sides by high grounds. The areas from Raj Bhavan in the north, to Cubbon Park in the city center, to Koramangala, and down to Hagadur channel water at high speed towards the low-lying area known as Mahadevapura. This forms one of the three major valleys in Bengaluru.
• 02:00 - 05:30: The Role of Tanks in Bengaluru's Water Management The chapter discusses the interconnected water management system involving lakes and tanks in Bengaluru. It highlights how rainfall in specific areas, such as Sankey tank, travels through various water bodies, eventually reaching larger sources like the Kaveri River. The path of the water flow demonstrates the network and importance of tanks in managing the city's water resources. The incomplete transcript leaves the description partial, especially regarding the northern flow of rainwater.
• 05:30 - 09:00: Exploring Vibhutipura Tank In this chapter titled 'Exploring Vibhutipura Tank', the narrative unfolds around the historical and environmental aspects of Vibhutipura Tank. The chapter begins with a background on the three streams of water that traversed the old city of Bangalore, highlighting how these streams, owing to their free flow, prevented flooding in the elevated terrains of the old city. This sets the context for a deeper exploration into the significance of these water bodies, both in terms of heritage and urban ecology. The chapter likely delves into how these streams and the Vibhutipura Tank contribute to the ecological balance, cultural narrative, and urban planning of the region. The nostalgic and informative tone suggests a blend of historical storytelling with contemporary environmental concerns.
• 09:00 - 11:00: Historical Insights and Water Management The chapter discusses two flooded streams in Mahadevpura, Bangalore, as clues to the city's historical water management strategies. Bangalore, unlike many major cities, does not have a large water source such as a sea or river, relying instead solely on rainwater. The chapter emphasizes that historical insights can help tackle present-day water management challenges.

Blr Floods - HISTORY MATTERS! Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] I'm so happy to see the response to part one of the video and if you haven't seen it do see it in this video we will look at more fun Maps we will do a quiz we visit an ancient Temple we go to places where no man woman or raindrop has gone before all in our quest to understand why Bengaluru floods my main learning from video one was that the area called mahadevpura is actually
• 00:30 - 01:00 in a valley surrounded on three sides by high grounds in fact if you take an arc all the way from Raj Bhavan in the north to cabin park in the city center to koramangala and all the way down to Hagler you actually find that all the water that falls in this large part of Bangalore has rail actually gets channeled at high speed into the low-lying area or the low-lying valley called mahadevapura and this is just one of three such valleys in city of Bangalore [Music]
• 01:00 - 01:30 if a raindrop Falls at Sankey tank it flows South all the way to Gali engineer temple on Mysore Road onwards to kangari and then all the way to the kaveri and if a raindrop Falls North of the outer Ring Road nearby closed captioning not available [Music]
• 01:30 - 02:00 [Music] three of them flowed unimpeded and so the three streams of water that flowed through what is the old city the old Bangalore which is on The High Ground actually did not flood and it's only the
• 02:00 - 02:30 two streams in the newer parts of Bangalore in mahadevpura which flooded they give us some clues that we know how to handle rainfall we have handled it in the past and as always many answers can be found in history Bangalore is one of the few major world cities that is not at a big water source like the sea or a river our only water source is rain and we don't get enough of it you know cities generally learn how to deal with
• 02:30 - 03:00 the water body they're next to this water body can be a bone or a disaster and most coastal cities learn how to deal with the tides most Riverfront cities learn to deal with the occasional flash flooding in Bangalore we haven't really had to learn the hard way what it means to have unprecedented rainfall until last week see the map we are the highest point on the Deccan Plateau the highest urban center and any rain that we get essentially flows away through Tamil Nadu to the east to the
• 03:00 - 03:30 Bay of Bengal our challenge historically has been how to capture the water when it does Fall and store it for the full year of you know what's interesting Bangalore has never been the capital of any major South Indian empire and that's because we never had enough water to support a population or to create surpluses to actually deserve being an important city okay all you trivia Buffs it's quiz time how many legs does Bengaluru have
• 03:30 - 04:00 thousand two thousand now we are only at 300 200 but you really know how many lakes Bengaluru has You Wanna Know the answer is zero Bangalore has no Lakes I'm serious there is not a single natural lake in the city a lake is defined as the body of water surrounded by land it's actually like a bowl in which there's water there is no flow it's a natural Lake formation Bangalore has
• 04:00 - 04:30 none because we're an up and down City Bangalore has tanks and a tank is this water storage created by human engineering and this is a very fundamental thing to understand so when you look around you see hebbar lake lake they're not Lakes they're not tanks not these tanks have you heard of a famous tank in Bangalore Sankey tank or Miller's tank those names stick
• 04:30 - 05:00 but they're all the same all the water bodies in Bangalore wear tanks or Kerry in kannada so what is a tank and what is the difference between the tank and the lake it's quite straightforward actually if water is Flowing down during the rainfall along the natural Contour of the ground and you want to store it what you do is you find a valley where the water is flowing and you build a dam or a Bund or a small embankment to actually stop the water and then the water fills up and you get a tank it's as simple as that
• 05:00 - 05:30 and why would you do that because you want to store water for either drinking water or for agriculture which was the primary use in the past and so what the Ancients would do is they would actually find a place where the water is Flowing anywhere in the rainfall built in embankment in the dry season when there's no water the water would fill up and create a tank and then Downstream from the tank where the land is lower you'd actually have your fields and this water is good for irrigation
• 05:30 - 06:00 let's actually go to a tank and see what's going on here we are going to a tank at vibhutipura next to the Hal airport which you would believe is at High Ground our airport has never got flooded and let's see what the Ancients did here and what we can learn from it so if you look at this vibhutipura tank this is the direction of the water flow when it rains this is the highest port in this area and so the Ancients built a band over here and trap the water here
• 06:00 - 06:30 and downstream this is what is called the command area where they practice agriculture typically crops like rice and ragi which actually require standing water and so you would expect there was a way that they would release the water from the tank to the fields when required because they did let's go and see these places now I'm standing at the Eastern Downstream end of the vibhutipura
• 06:30 - 07:00 [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music]
• 07:00 - 07:30 and what the stone tells us just boggles the mind it's fascinating people who lived here inscribed on this and we're trying to tell us something and the story they tell us is very fascinating it refers to the building of the tank in ad 1308 something very easy about running your hand on a stone on which someone has written something over 700 years ago this is an ancient sluice gate this was the way the Ancients actually released
• 07:30 - 08:00 water from the scary to the fields on that side and it's fascinating it's a feat of human engineering from 700 years ago you can see the hooks on the granite out there and they would essentially lift the granite open the gates and the water would rush out let's go and see how the water rushed out I'm gonna Rush there [Music] I'm at a good 20 feet almost below what
• 08:00 - 08:30 used to be the water level at the top of the parade and this is where the water would have come out when those close gate opened [Music] and what is fascinating about what's written here it's talking about the people of this area getting together actually creating a tank I keep creating dry and wetlands and doing agriculture 700 years ago people out there had
• 08:30 - 09:00 figured out how to manage the rain water how for their purposes because a lot we can learn from history isn't it thank you but what happens if there's very heavy rain and the tank fills up it overflows and it overflows and follows the Watercourse goes Downstream a lake involves no flow in a river there is flow all the time but when you have tank system you depend on overflow if there's too
• 09:00 - 09:30 much rain and controlled Water Management to actually irrigate your fields and so the way it worked in Bengaluru and many other cities in the world don't have natural water and depend on the rain is that a series of Tanks is stated along the natural flow of the water and you have tanks Downstream at various points wherever people wanted to store the water and that's exactly how the city of Bangalore is [Music]
• 09:30 - 10:00 the other point to to consider which I had not thought about is that these are not perennial Banks they only have water when it rains and then we store it and then we use it in fact many of the tanks in Bengaluru would go dry in the summer there would be an alternate use I have played Cricket in dry tank beds in Bengaluru in the 1980s and many of you would remember that large parts of Bengaluru would have large dry swampy areas in the summer
• 10:00 - 10:30 sometimes these were used for exhibitions sometimes these were used for sport and often people would use the mud or the silt in these dry tank beds to make bricks so you had brake kills so it was an understood seasonal pattern there was the summer time when the cranks were dry the monsoons came they filled up they were used for agriculture this cycle has played itself out for centuries and is very much part of our Collective memory of a town that does not have its own natural water source
• 10:30 - 11:00 there's one thing I've learned in today's journey is that our ancestors in bigger room you are thinking about what America in fact respected water and there is a sophisticated system of water harvesting in management that served as well for centuries and then suddenly something changed in the 1800s change the way this city looked at Water we find out more about that in part three [Music]
• 11:00 - 11:30 thank you