By TTC­SI Sec­re­tari­at

For near­ly two decades, Port-of-Spain has en­dured se­vere flood­ing that halts busi­ness, par­a­lyzes trans­porta­tion, and in­flicts mil­lions in loss­es with alarm­ing reg­u­lar­i­ty. The cat­a­stroph­ic floods of No­vem­ber 2008 and No­vem­ber 2011 were clear warn­ings — yet they were some­what un­heed­ed.

From then un­til as re­cent­ly as June 2025, ma­jor in­un­da­tions have struck the cap­i­tal al­most an­nu­al­ly, leav­ing com­mu­ni­ties strand­ed and in­fra­struc­ture over­whelmed. These events have oc­curred not un­der the as­sault of hur­ri­canes or trop­i­cal de­pres­sions, but dur­ing or­di­nary sea­son­al rain­fall.

Many ex­perts agree that this re­cur­ring cri­sis is not caused by na­ture’s ex­cess­es but by years of in­ad­e­quate drainage plan­ning, un­reg­u­lat­ed land use and ur­ban de­vel­op­ment that out­paced in­fra­struc­ture.

De­vel­op­ment out­run­ning de­sign

By the end of 2008, con­struc­tion of the ma­jor gov­ern­ment com­plex­es in Port of Spain had been sub­stan­tial­ly com­plet­ed. Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, the sur­round­ing val­leys — Mar­aval, St. Ann’s, and Diego Mar­tin — wit­nessed a surge in up­scale res­i­den­tial de­vel­op­ments on hill­sides and foothills.

How­ev­er, the city’s drainage in­fra­struc­ture were not ful­ly ex­pand­ed or mod­ernised in step. The com­mon re­sponse was the walling, lin­ing, and paving of ex­ist­ing wa­ter­cours­es — a vis­i­ble but may be con­sid­ered by some as a mis­lead­ing demon­stra­tion of “progress.”

This ap­proach, our mem­bers have said, ap­pear to be do­ing some­thing to solve the drainage prob­lem, bur cre­at­ed a hy­draulic time bomb. By smooth­ing and con­strain­ing chan­nels, stormwa­ter was ac­cel­er­at­ed to­ward down­stream ar­eas — de­liv­er­ing high­er vol­umes of runoff in short­er times, over­whelm­ing low-ly­ing dis­tricts, and am­pli­fy­ing flood in­ten­si­ty.

If all con­struc­tion were halt­ed to­day, the best we could hope for is that fu­ture flood­ing would be no worse than it is now — and that is al­ready a cri­sis.

A pol­i­cy fail­ure more than an en­gi­neer­ing one

Flood­ing in Port of Spain has long been treat­ed as a drainage en­gi­neer­ing is­sue — as if the so­lu­tion were sim­ply to move wa­ter faster from one point to an­oth­er. Yet the re­al fail­ure lies in pol­i­cy in­er­tia and in­sti­tu­tion­al frag­men­ta­tion.

Each new flood trig­gers emer­gency re­spons­es, cleanup op­er­a­tions, and re­newed promis­es of leg­isla­tive re­form. Yet com­pre­hen­sive, sci­ence-based stormwa­ter man­age­ment poli­cies re­main ab­sent from the na­tion­al plan­ning frame­work.

Our mem­bers are of the view that by de­lay­ing de­ci­sive ac­tion, we are al­low­ing the prob­lem to out­grow our eco­nom­ic and tech­ni­cal ca­pac­i­ty to fix it. Many of the drainage and flood mit­i­ga­tion plans pro­posed decades ago are now ob­so­lete due to new de­vel­op­ments and land use re­pur­pos­ing.

The path for­ward: Two ur­gent pol­i­cy shifts

To achieve mean­ing­ful flood mit­i­ga­tion, Port of Spain needs a par­a­digm shift — one that in­te­grates stormwa­ter man­age­ment in­to the DNA of en­vi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tion, build­ing ap­proval, and ur­ban de­sign:

1. Re­al­lo­cate land for stormwa­ter in­fra­struc­ture

The Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion cur­rent­ly re­quires de­vel­op­ers to re­serve land for com­mu­ni­ty and so­cial fa­cil­i­ties — many of which al­ready ex­ist near­by. This pol­i­cy should be mod­ernised to re­quire that de­vel­op­ments above a cer­tain size ded­i­cate a pro­por­tion of land specif­i­cal­ly for stormwa­ter man­age­ment in­fra­struc­ture.

These des­ig­nat­ed ar­eas can ac­com­mo­date de­ten­tion or re­ten­tion ponds or veg­e­tat­ed swales, all of which help store and slow­ly re­lease runoff, pre­vent­ing rapid surges down­stream. In many cities, such in­stal­la­tions al­so dou­ble as green spaces or recre­ation­al ameni­ties, en­hanc­ing ur­ban liv­abil­i­ty.

2. Move be­yond “no-Wors­en­ing” — re­quire re­al re­duc­tion

The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) and the Drainage Di­vi­sion cur­rent­ly re­quire that post-de­vel­op­ment stormwa­ter dis­charge rates must not ex­ceed pre-de­vel­op­ment lev­els. But main­tain­ing an al­ready over­bur­dened runoff regime pro­vides no re­lief to the sys­tem.

In­stead, Trinidad and To­ba­go should adopt a “net im­prove­ment” stan­dard — re­quir­ing that new de­vel­op­ments re­duce stormwa­ter dis­charge by at least 20 per cent be­low pre-de­vel­op­ment lev­els.

This mod­el has been suc­cess­ful­ly im­ple­ment­ed in sev­er­al UK cities, com­pelling each new project to con­tribute pos­i­tive­ly to flood mit­i­ga­tion rather than sim­ply avoid mak­ing it worse.

Such a man­date en­cour­ages on-site de­ten­tion, per­me­able paving, green roofs, and rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing — prac­tices that slow, ab­sorb, and reuse rain­fall where it falls.

“Our chal­lenge is not the rain — it is the way we de­vel­op our built en­vi­ron­ment to re­ject, rather than man­age, the wa­ter that sus­tains them.”

In­te­grat­ing green and grey in­fra­struc­ture

Mod­ern flood re­silience is not about choos­ing be­tween en­gi­neer­ing and ecol­o­gy — it is about com­bin­ing both. Cities that have suc­ceed­ed in re­duc­ing flood­ing, from Sin­ga­pore to Rot­ter­dam, in­te­grate green in­fra­struc­ture (parks, wet­lands, and veg­e­tat­ed cor­ri­dors) with grey in­fra­struc­ture (drains, cul­verts, and re­ten­tion basins).

Port-of-Spain can fol­low suit by adopt­ing ur­ban de­signs that make space for wa­ter — restor­ing nat­ur­al drainage paths, and us­ing ex­ist­ing pub­lic lands for wa­ter stor­age and con­trolled dis­charge. For ex­am­ple, how about a beau­ti­ful­ly de­signed recre­ation­al lake (re­ten­tion pond) at the north­east­ern cor­ner of the Sa­van­nah to draw and re­tain wa­ter from the St. Ann’s Riv­er?

This in­te­grat­ed ap­proach sup­ports not just flood con­trol, but al­so ground­wa­ter recharge, ur­ban cool­ing, and en­vi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty — all key pil­lars of our Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Strat­e­gy.

En­gi­neer­ing lead­er­ship and po­lit­i­cal will

Our mem­bers in the field of en­gi­neer­ing are of the view that En­gi­neers have the knowl­edge and tools to solve Port of Spain’s flood­ing cri­sis. What re­mains lack­ing is the align­ment of gov­er­nance, pol­i­cy, and po­lit­i­cal will.

The en­gi­neer­ing com­mu­ni­ty, such as the As­so­ci­a­tion of Pro­fes­sion­al En­gi­neers of Trinidad and To­ba­go (APETT), can lead the con­ver­sa­tion — fram­ing stormwa­ter man­age­ment not as a cost, but as an in­vest­ment in na­tion­al re­silience and eco­nom­ic con­ti­nu­ity.

Floods are not mere­ly an en­vi­ron­men­tal nui­sance; they are a re­cur­ring eco­nom­ic dis­as­ter that erodes pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, dam­ages prop­er­ty, and un­der­mines in­vestor con­fi­dence. The time for in­cre­men­tal fix­es is over — we need com­pre­hen­sive, en­force­able, and fu­ture-ready poli­cies that match the ur­gency of the prob­lem.

Con­clu­sion

Mem­bers re­mained con­vinced that Port-of-Spain’s floods are a re­minder that na­ture is pa­tient, but pol­i­cy can­not af­ford to be. The same rain­fall that nur­tures our val­leys is now drown­ing our cap­i­tal. They con­clude by say­ing that ‘we may con­tin­ue to treat each flood as an iso­lat­ed event — or we can rec­og­nize it as a sys­temic fail­ure de­mand­ing sys­temic re­form. If we act now — with fore­sight, co­or­di­na­tion, and courage — Port-of-Spain can be­come a mod­el of Caribbean ur­ban re­silience.

But if we con­tin­ue to pave, drain, and de­fer, we may one day re­al­ize that the city did not fall to rain — it fell to in­ac­tion”.