Analysis and Action
Spatial Planning for Conservation and Restoration of Urban Water Bodies: A Case of Jabalpur, India
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Anugrah Anilkumar Nagaich, Umang Patel, Navneet Munoth
Many cities in India traditionally had a large number of water bodies catering to the requirements of urban areas. While some of these urban water bodies were big enough to retain water throughout the year, others were like small tanks, i.e., low lying areas that accumulate water during the monsoon and are typically dry in the summers. The city of Jabalpur, which is located very close to the geographical center of India, had 36 urban water bodies (referred to as ‘Taals’) within the limits of the municipal area; which today are under great environmental stress due to pollution from various sources. A number of slums surrounding these water bodies discharge their sewage and silage into the existing drainage network of the area, which ultimately finds their way into these water bodies through open drains. This paper considers the important issue of conservation as well as restoration of these urban water bodies of Jabalpur city in India. The authors review the existing legal as well as governance provisions of India for urban water-body conservation; and analyze the characteristics and inter-dependencies of the existing water bodies of Jabalpur with their surroundings, while also classifying them appropriately with respect to their physical and environmental parameters. Subsequently, the paper proposes appropriate spatial spatial planning strategies/interventions that can be implemented by the government and civil society to preserve and restore these waterbodies, thus seeking to address an issue that also plagues many other urban areas of India and of South-East Asian Countries.
Actions for Addressing Air Pollution: Outlook of Practices from Developed and Developing Countries
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Navneet Munoth, Vidhi Goel, Anugrah Anilkumar Nagaich
In this paper, a comparative approach has been adopted for understanding the current levels of pollution within the cities of several developed as well as developing countries through the analysis of crucial environmental parameters. The objective of doing this is to identify, highlight and compile the best practices that can be adopted for tackling the significant challenges posed by air pollution in these diverse regions. The best practices so highlighted, from both the categories of countries (i.e., developed and developing countries) and their urban centers, can offer crucial guidance for mitigating the ever growing consequences of climate change and pollution. Such practices can also be identified as a set of important case examples, which can subsequently guide similar cities or regions while empowering them to deal with the challenges of air pollution through similar yet improvised approaches. This paper deals with the consideration of air pollution as a core issue, and considers the case of several cities in different countries. One of the major outcomes of the study is to initiate and set in motion a process of creative dialogues between different arrangements and stakeholders through the learnings about sustainable approaches to tackle air pollution and their associated implementation. Additionally, such an approach can serve as the starting point to understand how and why the air pollution is claustrophobic to human beings as well as to the concept of ‘city as an organism’.
