Wetlands - Question of Cities

When high-rises occupy Mumbai’s salt pans, where will the water go?

Often forgotten as a crucial part of the city’s estuary formation, Mumbai’s salt pan lands are under threat. Nearly 256 acres were sanctioned earlier this year to house people displaced by the Dharavi Redevelopment Project. Although notified as wetlands, the…

‘Ecology is a city’s natural buffer. We don’t see its tipping point, its warning.’

As large swathes of natural ecology in our cities are sacrificed for development and construction, not only do we lose the trees and rivers and lakes, but also the imagination of cities defined by its natural elements. Land use does…

Why cities must reconnect with their rivers, renew river-people relationship

Rivers are slowly being erased from people’s lives and imagination in cities. Seen as water sources, as dumping yards for waste, and their floodplains as developable land, they remain disconnected from the rhythms of urban life. Rivers are, can be,…

The ‘build more’ way has failed. How to build better cities?

The construction industry, India’s second-largest contributor to the national GDP, rules the roost in cities, determining housing and other basic amenities, turning natural areas and common property resources into buildings or highways, and yet failing to address the shortfall in…

From St. Inez Creek to Goa’s stories of water systems

The short film, Avnati, tells the story of the degradation of the St. Inez Creek that flows through Panaji through the lives and memories of people around it. From an idyllic place where people recall floating paper boats, the water…

Watching over the water of our lakes and wetlands

Thane and Navi Mumbai, old and new cities respectively which are often overshadowed by Mumbai, have seen their ecological abundance of rivers, creeks, wetlands, hills and forests threatened by ‘development’ plans and infrastructure projects. Professionals, environmentalists, architects, traditional communities like…

Mithi: More than a rainwater drain for Mumbai but tell that to the authorities

The quiet Mithi River turned hostile on July 26, 2005, flooding the city in the record 944 millimetres rainfall that day. Pinched and bent in places, narrowed by encroachments, treated like a sewage stream, the Mithi became the focus of…

Reimagining Mumbai: From flood-prone to sponge city

Over the years, reckless development has destroyed the city’s ecology, increasing the risk of floods. Mumbai’s lakes, marshes, and salt pans used to absorb monsoon rains and mitigate floods but they have been built upon or covered with concrete. As…

Climate disasters are connected to the way our cities are planned

Cities have completely ignored their natural areas. If mapped and made available on a public database, people can be empowered with the knowledge about them and can decide to protect them. Mapping a city’s ecology can radically change the way…

How Navi Mumbai developed into an urban jungle edging out nature

The planned satellite city on the outskirts of the oversaturated Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, was built from scratch. Its landscape was once an ecologically-rich rural one with hill ranges, dozens of wetlands, creeks and intertidal areas, tropical semi-evergreen and deciduous vegetation,…