The clean-up of evacuations is no longer sufficient to address all the black spots of flooding in Lebanon. Mohammad al-Hajj Shehadé, head of the central maintenance service at the Ministry of Public Works, distinguishes the areas where maintenance remains adapted from those requiring new works. In an interview published on 7 November, the engineer describes aging networks, faced with urbanization and sometimes very concentrated rains.
It estimates that cleaning meets the needs of more than 90% of the road network concerned. This assessment is that of the respondent, not the result of an independent audit made public. The remaining challenges include the capacity of facilities and the sharing of responsibilities between administrations.
Floods in Lebanon: who maintains which network?
Chehadé presents the scope of his ministry’s intervention: maintenance of evacuations on internationally classified roads. He mentions seven lots of contracts for this work. The other routes fall under the jurisdiction of municipalities and their unions, depending on the distribution of competences.
The Ministry of Energy and Water is involved in natural rivers. The manager also mentions the sewerage networks and local structures responsible for certain equipment. However, water crosses administrative boundaries: an upstream obstacle may disrupt an axis maintained by another organism.
This distinction counts to understand the interventions. Cleaning a grid on a road does not necessarily solve the problem of a nearby watercourse. Similarly, a saturated communal work does not automatically become a Public Works site because its overflow hinders traffic.
The responsible person describes the necessary coordination between administrations. It also links difficulties to weak resources and funding constraints. Seasonal maintenance and the creation of new infrastructure do not involve the same budgets or procedures.
Black dots evolve with rain
Cleaning service providers identify sensitive sectors based on network observations and monitoring. Chehadé indicates that emergency teams are positioned on recurring black spots. Mobile patrols must also take place when a problem arises along the roads.
The engineer describes the appearance of new difficult points over the last three years. In particular, it links it to heavy precipitation over a short period of time. It refers, depending on the location, to the creation of networks, the improvement of existing facilities and the strengthening of emergency arrangements.
These explanations are not a weather forecast for the winter. They explain how the service adapts its maintenance to observed situations. The availability of teams and the quality of monitoring of providers remain elements of follow-up.
According to Chehadé, the ministry relies on advisory offices to monitor the work. Control covers the execution of operations and reporting of anomalies. Detailed site maps, inspection results and correction times are not included in the maintenance.
At Nahr al-Ghadir, the narrow limits flow
The case of Nahr al-Ghadir illustrates the limitations of an intervention based solely on curage. Chehadé explains that deepening the course does not solve the problem of insufficient width. Maintenance work can remove obstacles, but does not automatically give the bed the necessary dimensions.
The responsible person refers to the encroachment on waterways and the need for treatment with the competent authorities. Expanding a work or changing a route may also require the mobilization of land. These interventions require studies and, in some cases, acquisitions.
Urbanisation adds another constraint. Equipment designed for an older environment must receive flows from now more constructed sectors. The technical diagnosis must determine whether maintenance is sufficient or whether the very capacity of the network must change.
New books require programming
Chehadé thus distinguishes the immediate interventions from the projects to be prepared over several stages. For structurally inadequate points, he referred to master plans and appropriate funding. The design of a work involves examining its articulation with the entire water course.
This approach does not remove the obligation to maintain existing facilities. Waste or deposits can aggravate an already fragile point. But more cleaning passages do not replace an expansion, an additional network or a resumption of development when the diagnosis deems it necessary.
Maintenance is not accompanied by any guarantee of no flooding. For sectors identified as insufficient, the steps to be taken remain the definition of work, coordination between agencies and the mobilization of funds.
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