Environment

Every evening, A M Aravind, a birdwatcher in Madipakkam, ensures he spends at least an hour hanging around his balcony or terrace. The lockdown may have temporarily halted many of his regular activities, but not his bird watching hobby. Though he could not travel to the woodland edges or the marshes, Aravind has spotted over 35 species in his neighbourhood habitat over the past three months.  Like Aravind, many city residents have taken to balcony birding or backyard birding this season, to enjoy a break from the mundane routine of the lockdown. The high-pitched, loud and persistent calls of the…

During the day, they look like black plastic garbage bags blown onto trees by a strong gust of wind. As darkness falls, their arms unfold and they take off, flying between the multi-storied buildings in our Lokhandwala Township in Kandivali East. As you might have gathered, I've spent quite a few hours over the last few years watching bats, amazed at how similar they are to vampires in movies. Or maybe it's the other way round, vampires in movies are inspired by the wide black wings of bats. Hundreds of bats hanging like plastic bags. Photo: Arathi Manay Since the…

Many lakes in Bengaluru, such as Kaikondrahalli, Kasavanahalli and Kalkere lakes, have foamed before. But the quantity of foam in Varthur and Bellandur lakes are alarmingly high.  In our previous article, we saw that fire occurs in Bellandur and Varthur lakes mainly because about 40% of the city's sewage is discharged into the catchment areas of these lakes. Apart from sewage, industrial effluents and solid waste are also dumped into these lakes. In some circumstances, this can cause the formation of foam. Foam in both Bellandur and Varthur lakes usually form during the pre-monsoon and monsoon season, when there are heavy…

The novel coronavirus scare globally has eclipsed many other issues, but water scarcity and how it adds to the challenge of the COVID-19 fight is one that cannot be ignored at any cost. Easy and regular access to clean water and proper sanitation is one of the fundamental requirements to keep the disease at bay, but in many urban areas of India, lack of such access may also emerge as one of the biggest hurdles for people trying to stay safe and healthy.  And it is not just the metropolitan areas or the bigger cities that suffer from insufficient water…

We often see people in apartment complexes and neighbourhood shops putting out a whole lot of food (or grains) for the birds - usually pigeons and crows are the recipients. Ask any of them why they feed the birds and the answers almost always point towards redemption - doing a good deed, reserving a place in heaven, overcoming personal difficulties and the like. Urban wild animals such as pigeons and crows are meant to fend for themselves! There is something called ‘natural selection’ which allows only for the fittest individuals to survive, getting rid of weak animals and those prone…

The National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) was announced in 2018 and the draft was accepted in 2019. The programme is designed to build institutional capacity and initiate studies to better understand the pollution load in cities.  122 cities from 20 states and 3 union territories were declared “non-attainment” cities, based on the observed particulate matter pollution trends from the national ambient monitoring program (NAMP).  These cities were required to submit action plans outlining how to achieve 20-30% reduction in the ambient PM 2.5 levels by 2024, when compared to 2017. As of May 2020, there are 102 approved action plans.…

This article is part of our special series Environmental Sustainability & Climate Change in Tier II cities supported by Climate Trends. Natural disaster triggered by unusual climate events is a way of life in Himachal. The latest incident is that of flash floods triggered by sudden heavy rainfall in Kinnaur with the IMD issuing yellow weather warnings of heavy rainfall in middle and lower hills of the state in the coming few days. Fortunately, no lives were lost. Earlier in June 2005, when the Pareechu lake in Tibet burst its banks, the loss of property, both private and public, was…

The city’s Chief Resilience Officer Krishna Mohan was on a flight over Chennai when he glanced out of his window and saw that the many rooftops dotting the city were all barren and empty, devoid of any greenery. This sight was unlike many of the cities he had visited. The view was stuck in his mind for some time and became the catalyst for the creation of an urban rooftop garden project for Chennai, which holds immense potential for the improvement of green cover in Chennai. The Urban Horticulture Initiative Urban horticulture is one of the strongest examples of effective…

This article is part of our special series Environmental Sustainability & Climate Change in Tier II cities supported by Climate Trends. The life sustaining character of the Sutlej river has changed drastically in recent years. Symptomatic of Sutlej’s sorry state is the Buddha Nullah, a 14-km stream that runs through Ludhiana, picking up toxic effluents in massive quantities and around 200 MLD of untreated sewage a day,  in its passage through the city before dumping it all in the Sutlej.  Sutlej which originates at the Mansarovar lake in Tibet, flows through Himachal Pradesh and Punjab covering a distance of 1450…

The draft Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) turns the original 2006 EIA notification on its head. While the earlier notification had made environment impact assessment a precondition for any project to get started, the new draft allows industries to get started on their projects in violation of EIA norms and then seek clearance. And Pune’s green activists are adding their voice to the countrywide criticism of the new draft. Pune’s fight is against the Bal Bharati-Paud Phata link road that cuts through the Law College hill. The justification given by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is that this 2.1 km link…