Chennai's Approach to Urban Flood Resilience

As part of the InnovateUK Urban Centre Contingency, we recently visited Chennai’s Command and Control Centre (CCC) in southern India. Located beside the iconic neoclassical Ripon Building, the seat of the Greater Chennai Corporation, the CCC offers a fascinating glimpse into how technology is reshaping city management.

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Chennai, formerly known as Madras until 1996, is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, India’s southernmost state. Though it covers a similar area to Leeds, Chennai’s population exceeds 12 million. Managing such a dense and fast-growing metropolis demands data-driven precision, and the CCC is central to that effort.

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The CCC provides a nationwide view of ICT infrastructure and monitors critical government services. Its customised Network Management System (NMS) dashboard delivers live data on road traffic, waste collection, births and deaths, electricity distribution, and, of relevance to our visit, rainfall and flooding. Application Performance Management (APM) tools further ensure the reliability and performance of vital systems.

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During our visit, officials demonstrated how real-time weather and flood data inform rapid municipal responses. A network of weather stations and cameras feeds live information into dashboards that cross-reference historic trends with new data. This enables dynamic management, such as accelerating waste collection in flood-prone areas, to mitigate risk during heavy rainfall.

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Flooding remains one of Chennai’s greatest challenges. Experts at the Tamil Nadu Land Use 2025 conference have noted that recurring floods are not acts of nature alone, but consequences of rapid urbanisation and fragmented planning. V. Thiruppugazh, Chairman of the Advisory Committee for Mitigation of Floods, recalled that in 2019 Chennai was close to “Day Zero,” yet suffered major floods in 2015, 2021, and 2023, an indication of the city’s fragile water balance. Encouragingly, citizen groups such as Chitlapakkam Rising are helping restore water bodies and local resilience.

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We also visited IIT Madras, home to India’s top engineering students, where teams are developing technologies from anaerobic digesters that treat waste more efficiently to India’s first functioning hyperloop prototype. These innovations reflect the city’s growing technical capacity and creativity.It was a privilege to experience the CCC in operation. The centre exemplifies how data, infrastructure, and human insight can combine to manage complex urban systems. Chennai’s investment in digital governance and its collaboration with institutions like IIT Madras demonstrate a city rushing toward smarter, cleaner, and more resilient urban living.