Kolkata at the Crossroads

Building Resilience in the Face of Crises

by Akhar Bandyopadhyay

On February 25, 2025, I awoke to news of a 5.1-magnitude earthquake striking Kolkata, with its epicenter in the Bay of Bengal. Another tremor on January 7 originated in Tibetan China. I found myself reflecting on this unusual surge in seismic activity, unprecedented for Kolkata, and its set of broader ecological vulnerabilities. What other crises plague this coastal megacity, once dubbed “city of joy”? The grim reminder is: Kolkata sits on fragile ecological grounds in the face of an ever-accelerating climate threat.

State-Level Apathy: The Broader View

Numerous and crucial crisis-areas confront Kolkata, located in an immature delta toward the south, in the state of West Bengal, India. Is the West Bengal government genuinely pursuing its Long-Term Low Emission Development (LT-LED) Goals? It seems that it is merely offering lip service on climate change while clinging to populist welfarism and vote-bank freebies. Projects like uranium mining in Jaduguda, hydroelectric plants in the Ayodhya hills, railway tracks over Bhabadighi Lake, urban sprawl through rampant real-estate developments across the East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW)[1] (a Ramsar Convention-protected site since 2002, and locus of the “Newtown” Smart City project), Adani’s Deocha-Pachami coal-mining project, unwarranted encroachment by the tourism industry on the Mandarmani seacoast, illegal soil and sand-mining by the land-mafia associated with the ruling party, etc., all threaten the state’s ecological tipping-points. Unchecked deforestation drives along Jessore and Carry Roads to extend highways (for whom, at what cost?), and creating “eco-parks” for sanctuarized “eco-friendly beautification”—reveals the ruling elite’s profit-mongering wilful disregard for the environmental variables.

Kolkata’s fragile ecological location—130 km from the Bay of Bengal and a mere 9 meters above sea level. PHOTO: Google Earth

Kolkata’s Climate Vulnerabilities: The Niche View

Kolkata’s population averages 24,000/km² (World Population Review). The greater Kolkata metropolitan region contains 15 million. It is India’s most traffic-congested city (TomTom Traffic Index 2025). 2014 projections warned that coastal flooding could inundate Kolkata and Mumbai by 2070. The 2022 IPCC report noted that Kolkata (along with Guangzhou, Mumbai, Jakarta etc.) is projected to face the highest flood losses by 2050, with potential aggregate annual losses estimated at $32 billion without immediate adaptation measures. Kolkata, as per a 2012 report, ranked 7th in the Climate Change risk list. Corporate reluctance to invest in Kolkata, noted in 2012, reflects these concerns.

In 2013, ex-IPCC Chair R.K. Pachauri warned that delta cities like Kolkata face severe climate change risks, including sea-level rise and flooding. In 2003 itself, Dr. Nigam from Goa’s National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) predicted Kolkata’s inundation by 2020. Pachauri’s 2008 Kolkata visit and the 2009 IPCC report further highlighted the city’s vulnerability to rapid sea-level rise, with North Bengal, prone to landslides from heavy rains and erosion, facing major impacts from Himalayan glacial melt. Such transformations, ‘typically’ millennial, could unfold within a century or decades. Goa’s NIO reported a 5.74 mm yearly sea-level rise along Kolkata’s delta coast (2007), while a 2023 report noted mangroves migrating to the Hooghly due to salinization.

The Migration of Mangroves—these trees are actually migrating due to salinization of the water in the Hooghly River, which flows through Kolkata. PHOTO: The Indian Express

Kolkata, among eight megacities most vulnerable to disaster-related mortality per the 2022 IPCC report, sits atop the confined Bay of Bengal, where frequent missile tests create a “pressure cooker effect,” heightening cyclone risks. Erratic rainfall and cloudbursts around the year in Kolkata cause water logging due to impermeable roads and a century-old drainage system (covering 55% of 1,581 sq. km), which merely shifts water without recharging groundwater. Hooghly riverbank erosion is worsening, yet authorities are doing little. Untreated industrial wastewater, chemical/pesticide discharges and organic sewage pollute the Ganges-Brahmaputra river-basin, while the underwater metro project continues in the Hooghly river in addition to these threats. The decline of the legendary Sundarban mangroves, once a “buffer shield” against Bay of Bengal cyclones, can no longer protect Kolkata from super-cyclones (Aila, Fani, Bulbul, Amphan, Yaas, Remal) due to massive erosion and salinization that prevents the cyclone dispersal effect. There is no robust local or state action plan, despite the shallow presence of the Department of Sundarban Affairs under the Government of West Bengal.

Maplecroft’s 2012 report and consecutive findings warned of water stress, skin diseases, heat strokes due to raging heat-waves, and rising vector-borne diseases in and around Kolkata. Verisk Maplecroft (2021) report positioned the city near the lower end of the high-risk bucket. Notably, Kolkata’s PM2.5 air quality levels often exceed WHO guidelines, leading to increases in lung cancer and asthma[2]. Noise pollution has amplified, with the local club programs around the year causing unregulated cacophony way beyond the permitted decibel limits, sometimes even crossing 100-120 dB during festivals or events.

Kolkata’s eastward slope drives urban sprawl into its wetlands, triggering ecological destruction. The Farakka barrage in Malda, meant to flush sediment from Kolkata’s port, has backfired, causing sedimentation and sandbank formation, a stark example of unwarranted human intervention gone awry. Over-extraction of groundwater, especially via borewells in housing complexes, is sinking eastern Kolkata at -4 to -12 mm/year (2003-2011), with new subsidence zones west of the Hooghly emerging by 2017-2021 as groundwater levels fell by -0.3 m/year (Sahu and Sikdar, 2011; Shashtri et al., 2023), further intensifying seismic risks. A 2015 Times of India report, referencing Climate Central, warned that a 4°C global temperature rise could displace 12 million in Kolkata and its suburbs, while a 2°C rise endangers 5.6 million. Nearby Howrah and Haldia face 60% and 96% displacement risks, respectively. Climate refugees from Bangladesh add further pressure, highlighting the urgent need for robust action. With an average elevation of just 9.14 meters above sea level, Kolkata is increasingly uninhabitable. Bengal’s disaster management minister, Javed Khan, noted a lack of central and international funding for climate mitigation (Times of India, 2023). The total loss and damage caused by Cyclone Amphan stripped away Bengal’s green cover, costing ₹1,350 crore.

Beyond Climate Finance, Towards Inter-actions

Funding alone won’t suffice. Here’s what we need:

1. Fight deforestation along Jessore and Carry Roads with grassroots climate action.

2. Swap heat-trapping pitch-bitumen roads for permeable alternatives.

3. Stop wetland destruction for skyscrapers with policies curbing unsustainable urban expansionism in flood-prone areas or low-lying topographies.

4. Favour climate-resilient, earthquake-proof infrastructure over short-sighted, corporate “beautification” designs.

5. Boost groundwater with borewell restrictions and rooftop rainwater harvesting.

6. Safeguard the Sundarbans via sustainable rewilding, avoiding ecocidal monoculture afforestation (e.g., Eucalyptus in Bolpur), using regenerative permaculture instead.

7. Train city youth for disaster readiness against floods, cyclones, heatwaves, and earthquakes.

Making the Difference, Actions to Take!

Climate activist groups in Kolkata should draw inspiration from the Jessore Road Movement’s mobilizing power and build on its energy. In 2023, the Jessore Road Gaach Banchao (Save Trees) Committee protested the planned, court-authorized felling of 350 century-old trees through street demonstrations, echoing the Chipko movement. They demanded heritage status for the trees, challenging conventional “developmentalism” in favour of (w)holistic ecological preservation.

To redirect the attention of the West Bengal government toward climate priorities, activists could organize strikes, sit-ins, symbolic 'climate funeral' protests, or human chains outside key offices like the West Bengal Pollution Control Board, West Bengal Biodiversity Board, and/or East Kolkata Wetlands Management Authority. Coordinating mass signature campaigns and digital petitions targeting local, district, and state authorities would further amplify the push.

Jessore Road Anti-Ecocide Movement, organized by Fridays For Future-West Bengal PHOTO: The Indian Express

There is “hope” as long as we ourselves don’t forget to act in the here-and-now, and simply don’t wait for the state or corporate apparatuses to act “justly”!

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[1] EKW once recycled 910 million litres of untreated sewage daily through aerobic treatment, aiding flood, drought, and heatwave control while sequestering CO2. Recent studies show a 36% area loss over 30 years (65,300 sq. km in 1991 to 42,000 sq. m in 2021), with vegetation productivity and ecosystem health index dropping from 0.67 to 0.55, indicating biodiversity decline and less carbon sequestration.

[2] For instance, as of March 22, 2025, the Air Quality Index (AQI) has fluctuated between moderate (84) and unhealthy (169), with PM2.5 concentrations reported as 5.1 to 13.2 times above WHO annual guidelines.