Let’s fix the basics before planning for smart cities
are expected to shoot up, the new system would be of much help to the authorities and EPCA to implement the graded response action plan in Delhi-NCR,” said an EPCA member.
The air quality index or AQI is a figure and a series of colour codings shared by agencies on the level of pollution. For example, the one CPCB shares, ranges between 0 and 500.
An AQI between 0-50 is considered ‘Good’, 51-100 ‘Satisfactory’, 101-200 ‘Moderate’, 201-300 ‘Poor’, 301-400 ‘Very Poor’, and 401-500 ‘Severe’.
Each category comes with its the British-era drainage system was only half complete. Mumbai’s natural drainage system — the wetlands, lakes and the Mithi river — remain stuffed with concrete and garbage.
In Delhi, while the officially designated landfills were already experiencing minilandslides under the weight of city’s garbage when the Ghazipur disaster struck, hundreds of water bodies have been turned into makeshift dumpsites for want of proper waste disposal.
The national capital’s gutters and stormwater channels are clogged with plastic, construction waste, road dust and domestic sewage. Ponds and water bodies are long lost to real estate development. Unsurprisingly, even minor showers cause waterlogging, sewage back-flow and traffic jams. We talk about building smart cities even as we can’t stop our biggest urban centres from falling apart.
Far more obsessed with growth and urbanisation than India, even China has decided to pay more attention to the basics of civic planning than just executing “vanity” projects. In 2012, when flooding killed 79 people in Beijing, the authorities, like they do here in India, blamed the volume of rain and not their city’s mindless concretisation and inadequate drainage for the tragedy.
But a rethink followed and Chinese President Xi Jinping stepped in to announce the development of 16 sponge cities. own advisory. In case of ‘Moderate’, it warns of breathing discomfort to people with lungs, asthma and heart diseases while ‘Severe’ means the air quality is so bad that it may affect even healthy people and seriously impact those with existing diseases.
The CPCB has also formed around 40 teams for round-theclock inspections at the ground level to check violations such as burning of waste in the open, dust from construction projects and visibly polluting vehicles on roads through the winter months when pollution levels in Delhi spike. The project, launched in 2015, is about developing storage ponds, filtration pools, and wetlands in residential areas, and roads and squares built with permeable materials that allow storm water to soak into the ground more effectively.
The pilot projects in Beijing, Shanghai and Xinjiang have shown that 85% of the storm water run-off can be reduced yearly, China Water Risk, a non-profit organisation, reported. The harvested grey water is meant to be used in toilets and for washing the streets.
While there is anxiety around long-term funding and top-down approach in implementing the project, there is general consensus among all city administrations that this is their best shot at achieving flood mitigation and water security at the same time.
As the threat of climate change looms large, cities world over are, in fact, getting bolder in their initiatives to achieve resilience. Seoul (South Korea) has reclaimed the Cheonggyechon River, which had been covered by a highway. Inspired, planners in Mexico City are proposing to tear down the east-west highway, one of the busiest roads in Mexican capital, which encases the Piedad River. Initially done to control flooding, the cementing reduced the river to a drain, destroying its ability to absorb storm water.
Delhi has similarly built mega-structures such as Barapullah elevated road and Dilli Haat-INA over the natural channels that used to carry rainwater to the Yamuna. Ideas to demolish them and free up the nullahs may never gain political currency. But what’s stopping the city administration from unclogging the rainwater channels that can still be unclogged?
AS THE THREAT OF CLIMATE CHANGE LOOMS LARGE, CITIES WORLD OVER ARE, IN FACT, GETTING BOLDER IN THEIR INITIATIVES TO ACHIEVE RESILIENCE