DATA

Koramangala is one of Bengaluru’s most recognisable neighbourhoods. Originally planned as a suburb, it witnessed a transformation in the 1990s thanks to its connectivity to Electronic City and the IT corridors along Outer Ring Road. This boom drew skilled professionals from across the country, converting Koramangala into a vibrant commercial hub. With its rapid growth, the question of public transport became even more important, not just for residents, but also for the businesses that thrive here. During OpenCity’s Bengaluru Datajam, organised around the theme of public transport, our group focused on Koramangala’s bus connectivity with the rest of the city.…

Urban biodiversity is often discussed in terms of tree cover, lakes, or flagship species, but far less attention is paid to pollinators—the insects and birds that quietly sustain urban ecosystems. In Bengaluru, a rapidly urbanising city with a strong culture of citizen science, large volumes of biodiversity data are now being generated by the public. But what does this data tell us about pollinators in the city? This article draws from a data jam hosted by OpenCity in Bengaluru that explored pollinator observations using publicly available, citizen-generated datasets. By analysing long-term observation records and spatial data on land use and…

When we discuss urban nature, we often forget about real natural habitats. In Bengaluru, widely called the Garden City, most talks about urban nature focus on landscaped parks, roadside trees, and manicured gardens; in other words, artificial ecosystems designed for looks and human comfort. As lay citizens, we usually notice only such nature as we see around our homes, workplaces or other areas we generally pass by. While these places do have some ecological value, they mostly support a few highly adaptable species. This has strong negative implications for native flora and fauna that depend on open scrublands, grasslands, rocky…

Imagine you’re out on a morning walk, phone in hand, when you spot a butterfly you’ve never seen before. You snap a photo, log it into a citizen science app, and voila! You’ve just contributed to crucial biodiversity monitoring. This isn’t just a hobby; it’s part of a global movement where ordinary people collect, record, and sometimes analyse data about plants, animals, and ecosystems. Citizen science stretches the reach of ecological research. Every observation adds to unique longitudinal datasets that reveal phenology — periodic events in the life cycle of a species — along with species distribution shifts and population…

Chennai’s unregulated urbanisation has destroyed its water bodies and disrupted its natural drainage systems. This is true for the Kodungaiyur Canal System in North Chennai which includes the Ambattur, Korattur and Retteri lakes. This crucial waterway is designed to drain floodwaters into the Ennore Creek but is marred by encroachments and illegal sewage discharge. In fact, Kodungaiyur Lake, a part of Kosasthalaiyar and Cooum basin, is one of the lakes that has been eaten up and has been reduced to narrow canals because of human activity and government negligence. Flooding in encroached area, vulnerable groups affected During a datajam organised…

When the northeast monsoon hits Chennai, a foreseeable result of the heavy downpour is severe flooding in several areas, including Porur Lake. As residents living near this 200-acre water body battle inundation every year, our team set out to investigate the root causes of flooding using available data. Environmental issues have often been dealt with a one-size-fits-all approach, but our study aimed to provide specific solutions tailored to the Porur catchment area. For this, we mapped inundation patterns, land gradient, land use change and the outlay of stormwater drains (SWDs).   At a recent datajam organised by the Oorvani Foundation…

Mumbai’s L Ward, covering Kurla, Chandivali, Saki Naka, and Powai, has been quietly heating up, and not just metaphorically. It is a ward of extremes: dense slums on one side, luxury high-rises and malls on the other. But when the mercury rises, the contrasts fade, and everyone feels the burn. With urban heat on the rise across the city, L Ward is emerging as one of Mumbai’s hotspots where everyday life is increasingly being shaped by climate stress. The heat problem Spread across 15.6 sq km, L Ward is home to more than nine lakh people, packed into one of…

The Cooum River, once a sacred river that shaped the history of Madras, has now become a sad sign of urban degradation. For the millions of residents in Chennai, it has transformed into a malodorous, polluted, and stagnant channel, burdened with solid waste accumulation and extensive encroachments along its banks. During a recent datajam organised by Oorvani Foundation and OpenCity, we used Geographical Information System (GIS) datasets and population analytics to investigate the underlying causes contributing to this crisis. The results show that rapid urbanisation, inadequate provision of essential civic infrastructure, and the absence of coherent policy frameworks, along with…

Mumbai's P/North Ward is a climate paradox. On a map, it looks green, boasting significant cover from the Sanjay Gandhi National Park to the east and vital mangroves to the west. Yet, the reality on the ground for its nearly one million residents is one of scorching heat. The surfaces people walk and live on have heated dramatically, with land surface temperatures soaring by over 5°C in much of this ward between 2015 and 2024. The reason is a familiar story of urban expansion: rapid, unplanned growth has replaced cooling ecosystems with a dense fabric of concrete, tin, and asphalt,…

Mumbai's M/East Ward, a sprawling peripheral area including Mankhurd, Govandi, Deonar, Trombay and Chembur, embodies a tale of two cities. It is a vital economic engine, home to major industrial facilities such as the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Tata Power, RCF and HPCL. At the same time, it lies on the city's fringe where its unseen have been pushed over decades, from the mountains of waste at the Deonar landfill to the marginalised communities resettled in its cramped colonies. Our study on the impact of rising urban temperatures reveals just how this deep-seated inequality is baked into the very…