Bengaluru: Bengaluru's planners have clearly let it down. A once green city, it is today suffering the effects of "senseless concretisation," according to a report by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc.) released by its lead scientist, Dr TV Ramachandra on Thursday.
Revealing that there has been a 1028 per cent rise in the city's paved surface over 46 years, from 1973 to 2017, the report says it has been experiencing unprecedented rapid urbanisation and sprawl in recent times due to "unplanned and unrealistic concentrated developmental activity."
Moreover, the city's population has increased from 4.3 million ( in 2001) to 8.4 million (in 2011) and the population density has risen from 7,880 persons per sq. km to over 11, 330 persons per sq.km, it notes.
The consequences have been serious and the environmental degradation is posing a serious challenge to city planners who are having to deal with loss of green cover and water bodies, climate change, enhanced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, lack of appropriate infrastructure, traffic congestion, and lack of basic amenities (electricity, water, and sanitation) in many localities, the report adds.
More alarmingly, it shares remote sensing data supported with field census, which shows there are merely 1.5 million trees to support the city's population of 9.5 million, which in effect means there is only one tree for every seven persons in Bengaluru. "This is insufficient even to sequester respiratory carbon," it warns.
