Bengaluru, once known as the “Garden City” for its lush greenery and cooler temperatures due to its higher altitude, faces a stark environmental challenge. Rapid urbanization has led to a dramatic decline in green spaces, raising concerns about the city’s future.
Lost Lakes and Fragmented Green Spaces:
The city’s once abundant lakes have dwindled to a handful. Many water bodies have been filled and built over, leading to increased concretization. This trend not only traps heat but also contributes to the worry of heat domes becoming a regular occurrence. Even remaining green areas are primarily concentrated in government and military zones, which enjoy cooler temperatures compared to the rest of the city. Public parks and green belts are scarce, existing more in theory than in practice.
Farmlands to IT Hubs: A Greener Past, Concrete Present:
Kumar highlights the transformation of agricultural land into office complexes. He emphasizes the need for the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to implement better land management practices. Balancing development with environmental sustainability requires addressing the demand for land responsibly.
Pollution and Water Woes:
The decline in greenery has a cascading effect. The rise of information technology (IT) parks, with their rapid construction phases and car-dependent workforces, coincides with increased air pollution.
The city grapples with water scarcity in the summer, prompting fines for water wastage. However, the monsoon season brings a different set of problems. Uncontrolled construction has blocked natural drainage paths, leading to water pooling and flooding in streets and roads.
Strangled Drainage and Inevitable Floods:
The crucial role of Bengaluru’s lakes, most of them man-made. These low-lying areas act as natural storage for rainwater. However, with concretization obstructing water flow, there’s nowhere for rainwater to percolate or drain into lakes. This, coupled with the increasing intensity of rainfall patterns, makes flooding inevitable.
The presence of small drainage channels in some roads proves inadequate for handling heavy downpours. Bengaluru’s future seems increasingly vulnerable unless a course correction is implemented to restore some semblance of its lost green cover and establish sustainable drainage systems.