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Partial flood defenses shift risks and amplify inequality in a core–periphery city

Nature Cities volume 2, pages 835–846 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Cities worldwide often rely on partial structural defenses to mitigate intensifying flood hazards. Although large-scale analyses suggest that partial levee coverage can reduce overall damage, its spatiotemporal effects remain understudied, particularly in cities of the Global South. Using a hydrodynamic model forced by extreme discharges (100-year return period flood event), along with depth–damage curves and demographic data, we find that partial levee construction in Surat, India, lowers citywide flood losses by ₹31.24 billion (US$380 million) in core urban wards and by ₹10.34 billion (US$125 million) in suburban neighborhoods. However, both damage and exposure become more inequitable, with the Gini index (0 = perfect equality, 1 = maximum inequality) rising by 20% for damage (0.55 to 0.66) and by about 26% for exposure (0.31 to 0.39). We introduced flood stripes and a protection-induced time shift to capture both spatial and temporal changes, finding that certain near-river wards can remain flood-free for up to 12 hours longer, whereas some downstream areas flood up to 7 hours earlier under partial levee coverage. These findings underscore the need for integrated strategies that address both dimensions of partial flood protection, ensuring that benefits for some do not escalate vulnerabilities for others.

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Fig. 1: Study area and the contrasting baseline and protected scenarios.
Fig. 2: Flood stripes and PITS reveal how partial levee protection alters non-submerged area and flood timing.
Fig. 3: Flood-volume changes and economic losses under baseline versus protected scenarios.
Fig. 4: Inequality in flood damages and exposure under baseline and post-levee scenarios.

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Data availability

The datasets used in this study can be obtained from various online sources that are publicly available (see Supplementary Table 1 for details).

Code availability

The codes used in this study are available via GitHub at https://github.com/SunilAshish/SF_Analyis.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the support of the Prime Minister Research Fellowship, Government of India and AICOE in Sustainable Cities Phase I/II for an ANRF (SERB) CRG grant (no. CRG/2023/001438, awarded to U.B.). In addition, we express gratitude to Surat Muncipal Corporation, Surat Irrigiation Circle and Central Water Commission (CWC) for providing the flood model data and assisting with the field survey in Surat. We also thank the members of the Machine Intelligence and Resilience Laboratory at IIT Gandhinagar, A. Data (IIT Gandhinagar, India) and R. Kumar (UFZ, Liepzig) for their valuable discussions and constructive feedback on this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Gandhinagar, India

    Ashish S. Kumar, Vivek P. Kapadia & Udit Bhatia

  2. Department of Economics, University of Burdwan, Burdwan, India

    Rajarshi Majumder

  3. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Gandhinagar, India

    Udit Bhatia

  4. Department of Earth Science, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Gandhinagar, India

    Udit Bhatia

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  1. Ashish S. Kumar
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Contributions

A.S.K. and U.B. designed the experiments. A.S.K. performed the analysis. A.S.K. and U.B. wrote the paper with input from R.M. and V.P.K.

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Correspondence to Udit Bhatia.

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Kumar, A.S., Majumder, R., Kapadia, V.P. et al. Partial flood defenses shift risks and amplify inequality in a core–periphery city. Nat Cities 2, 835–846 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44284-025-00299-7

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