India, Oct. 7 -- Following heavy showers that paralysed several parts of the city recently, environmentalists have warned policymakers that Lucknow's severe waterlogging is a man-made (self-inflicted) crisis.

Experts attribute the recurring inundation to a choked Gomti riverbed, toxic road runoff and reckless real estate expansion over ancient floodplains and natural drainage paths.

Biswajeet Thakur, a scientist at the Birbal Sahni Institute of Paleosciences (BSIP), emphasised that rapid, unchecked urban sprawl has drastically degraded the city's natural drainage dynamics.

"Aggressive urban development, particularly expanding towards the south-east direction along Sultanpur road, has virtually left no vacant plots or permeable green sp...