Rapid urbanization, socio-economic development and land use change lead to serious water-related issues like urban flooding in many countries. To manage and control the urban flooding, China planned in 2014 to follow the concept of sponge city, which aims to adopt low impact development concept, upgrade traditional drainage system with flood-resilient infrastructure and integrate natural water sources with artificial water bodies and green spaces, said Prof. Dr. Muhammad Farooq, Tsinghua University.
While in an exclusive talk with China Economic Net, Dr. Farooq said that in China at least 30 cities were the part of sponge city concept including Shanghai and 600 more cities to implement this concept.
Farooq said that Pakistan in recent years had faced an immense increase in urban development. Therefore, the top three populated cities of Pakistan including Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi were facing urban flooding specially in rainy season, which results in property loss and sometimes loss of human lives.
“Lack of land use planning and population increase due to internal migration leads to the generation of over 12,000 tons of solid waste only in Karachi, whereas about 40% of which remains dumped in city streets and water channels,” he mentioned. To control the urban flooding in major cities, Pakistan can learn from the Chinese model of sponge city.
Solid waste management facilities including treatment plants are also needed to be established in major cities to avoid the chocking of waste water drainage system and water channels, which are major causes of urban flooding.
These days Karachi is facing heavy floods due to monsoon rainy season, causing traffic jams and power shortage in enormous city areas. Strong winds uprooted trees and poles, and seasonal diseases erupted.
Dr. Adnan, a Pakistani businessman in the waste management sector, said that the major issue of Karachi was the mixing of sewerage and solid waste. When people throw the garbage randomly on the roads, it ends up in the nullahs or the drains and causes its choking. In order to avoid floods and blockage in monsoon, Karachi needs a long-term planning rather than one-time relief which is not only extremely expensive but also very short living.
“A few Chinese companies are working in Karachi in the field of solid waste management which has somehow provided relief to the people but their work is limited to a few areas. In other areas, the Pakistani authorities can set long-term goals with Chinese assistance,” he told China Economic Net.
He further said that long term goals with the objective of revamping the whole sewerage system as per the requirements of the population could ease the problem. All the new urban planning projects must have workable sewerage management system.
“Chinese companies can help in planning, provision of equipment and machinery,” he added.
Pakistani authorities should focus on solid waste management so that it can be cleared before it goes to the sewerage system. While collection of water on the roads in monsoon would not be a problem, the problem is when it stays there for days, Adnan added.
Pakistan’s biggest city Karachi is regularly facing the problem of streets blocked due to congested sewage lines, while due to rapidly growing population, these lines are too congested to bear the burden and are almost unmanageable. Therefore, it is direly needed to adapt to the latest sewage systems such as Chinese sponge city model rather than following the traditional techniques. 
