Rivers & Water Bodies | Water supply, consumption and pollution in cities

Delhi’s real town planner, the Yamuna, still gasps for life

Over the decades, even as multi-crore programmes to clean the river are expanded, the Yamuna and its floodplain continue to be polluted. Delhi takes from the Yamuna but treats it as a receptacle for its waste. As long as this…

Make space for rivers in cities, draft policies to protect them

Natural rivers and their ecosystems in cities are being ruined in the name of development with projects stripping away them of their…

The Sabarmati story: A river is more than a usable resource

The redeveloped, concretised, and glitzy Sabarmati riverfront in Ahmedabad is a far cry from the meandering river which flows into the Arabian…

Pune’s Mula-Mutha sinks into ecological disaster

The ancient river, Mula-Mutha, has been battered by floods, encroachments, and rampant constructions causing massive environmental damage. Turned into a sewer and…

‘Why do we not see that our cities have come up around rivers?’

There is a severe stress on our rivers when we treat them like a resource which can be exploited instead of protecting…

Water in the city: A matter of ecology, public health, and livelihoods

The importance of wetlands and waterbodies in urban planning has come to the fore after the devastating floods in India’s Bengaluru. They…

‘We need to plan cities for extremes. Climate Change is all about extremes’

The torrential rain and floods in Bengaluru in early September grabbed international attention, showing up wide cracks in the basic infrastructure of…

Flooded realities of ‘smart’ city Ahmedabad

Most of Ahmedabad was waterlogged and flooded when rains battered the city in July and September, washing away the city’s claims to be ‘smart’ with people scrambling to pick up pieces every time the skies open up. Lakes and waterbodies…