Following the ‘unprecedented nature’ of the 2015 floods (Arabindoo 2016), the southern Indian city of Chennai has been undertaking a series of flood mitigation initiatives amidst an awareness of a wider riverine eco-system. The ensuing a hydrological mapping of a watershed region exists largely outside of the metropolitan boundary but overlaps considerably with the city’s hinterland, a region marked by rapid, post-metropolitan growth. This seminar attempts an alternative way of thinking the two together, accommodating the uncertain and shifting terrain of land and water, a challenge pertinent to cities like Singapore with their land reclamation. It explores the potential of more-than-human planning as a practice that is a reparation of the ecological function in the watershed while addressing the ongoing urbanisation of the hinterland, highlighting its possibility to planners and policymakers.
