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When every drop of water counts, the idea is to recollect the oldest and most effective method of tapping rainwater at source.
Erratic rainfall patterns, extensive droughts, extreme heatwaves,
and intense storms are some of the instances of changing climate that have its impact on economic, social, and environmental fabric of the world.
In the last decade, weather related disasters affected around 4.1 billion people, leaving them homeless.
India, the world’s sixth-largest economy, is a home to more than 4,400 cities and towns out of which 53 cities have a million-plus population.
As per World Resource Institute’s Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas, India is ranked thirteenth among all ‘water-stressed’ countries in the world.
The Global Climate Risk Index 2021 ranks India as the 7th most-affected country from climate-related extreme weather events such as storms, floods, heatwaves, etc. Summer of 2022 has undoubtedly substantiated the findings of the report. According to a report of National Institute of Urban affairs, intensive monsoon rainfall will exacerbate the probability of flash flooding in about 78 Indian cities.
Deforestation, conversion of agricultural lands, creating infrastructure beyond the carrying capacity, loss of wetlands, distortion of watershed is some of the activities taken up to support the rising population in cities. Climate change can have varied implications on urban cities, increasing water in some regions while reducing expected water availability in another region.
Rising population and the subsequent concentration of people into cities are some of the reasons for distorting the resilience system of natural resources. Increasing urbanization and changing climatic trends with a limited resource base has created an undue pressure on the natural resources making the cities vulnerable to climate changes.
Challenges associated with the urban water sources are more imperative to be put on table for discourse. Urbanization and its associated challenges have been discussed at several forums. Various urban planners, environmentalists, administrators, and other knowledge experts had also devised solutions to manage the concerned issue of rising population in urban centers.
Water management has always been seen as a tradition in India. India boasts a rich and precious knowledge of various water harvesting structures specific to geography and topography.
The traditional knowledge aligned with nature always played an important role in maintaining and restoring ecological balance, acting as a source of drinking water, groundwater recharge, flood control, while ensuring livelihood opportunities to people.
India can demonstrate an ingenious system of Bamboo drip irrigation system in rainfall rich region of Meghalaya where about 18-20 liters of water can be collected by tapping stream and spring water by using bamboo pipes.
A nature-based solution uses tools that are provided by nature only.
These solutions not only deliver short term benefits but also extend the long-term
benefits to present and future stakeholders.
The mangrove forests can save about USD 80 billion per year by avoiding losses from coastal flooding and protecting up to 18million people globally.
Nature-based solutions also generate economic gains through immediate job creation, increased business productivity and tourism.
The potential only to restore the provisioning and regulating services of ecosystems but also enhancing the cultural ecosystem services.
Notably, nature-based solutions do not necessarily require additional financing sources but usually involve redirecting and making more effective use of existing financing sources.
NBS Nature-based solutions for water have high potential to contribute to the achievement of SDGs and targets of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.
Nature-based solutions (NBS) for water resources management involve the planned and deliberate use of ecosystem services to improve water quantity and quality and to increase resilience to climate change.
Nature-based solutions to manage water sector involves enhancing and delivering natural ecosystem services such as mangroves protecting shorelines from storms, peatlands sequestering carbon, wetlands filtering contaminated water, lakes storing large water supplies, and floodplains absorbing excess water runoff.
Complement natural infrastructure such as promoting green roofs, open and green buildings, planting trees and terrace gardens, recycling and reusing water.
For urbanely developed areas, improving the plot area of houses and buildings from the collection of rainwater through the roofs that can lead to canals and ponds through passage of improved drainage channels. Tapping rainwater is also required to rejuvenate urban lakes and ponds.
Local ponds and lakes act as a sponge and thermos-regulators, helping areas to accumulate rainwater, enhance groundwater and regulate micro-climate.
Endorsing blue-green infrastructure in the cities, creation and maintenance of urban green spaces are also recommended.
Creating urban green spaces is a holistic and a comprehensive approach to convert concrete jungle into a live able natural space with blue water bodies and green tree plantations.
By integrating grey and green infrastructure, cities are also investing in sustainable drainage systems, reducing hardened and impervious surfaces allowing water to infiltrate into the ground.
Surface permeability in urban areas can also be increased by using permeable paving where appropriate (e.g., footpaths, car-parking areas, access roads), thus reducing surface run-off and increasing groundwater recharge.
Nature-based solutions are the future to strengthen the power of resilience of cities, towns, and people against changing climatic trends.
The rising global challenges of climate change, urbanization, biodiversity loss, as well as the current global health and economic crisis, the investment in nature-based solutions should be well promoted.
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), nature-based solutions are “actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems, that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits.
QUESTIONS/DOUBTS:
What is Blue-Green Infrastructure? - Blue indicates water bodies such as rivers and tanks. Green indicates trees, parks, and gardens. Infrastructure refers to a network that provides the ingredients for solving urban and climatic challenges by a combination of infrastructure, ecological restoration and urban design to connect people with nature.
What is Urban green space? Green spaces such as parks, community gardens, trees, terrace gardens and cemeteries play an inevitable and important role in urban environment protection and have their own relevance in the urban ecosystem. Simply defined, they are open spaces or natural spaces within a city.
What is "Sponge Cities" Concept and its role in urban water management? This concept was proposed by Chinese researchers in 2000. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and State Council accepted this concept as “urbanism policy” in 2014.The concept features to absorb excessive rainfall through soil infiltration while retaining it in underground tunnels and storage tanks, only discharging it into the river once water levels are low enough.
Which is Sponge city in India? Chennai delivered effectively through an urban mission along the lines of the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), National Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY) and Smart Cities Mission.
What is Integrated Grey and Green Infrastructure? Integrated grey and blue-green solutions are cost-efficient, scalable and offer a multitude of ecosystem benefits to manage urban floods; there is urgent need to transition to such systems to meet current and future urban flooding challenges in India.
"LiFE Movement " launched by PM Modi for which purpose? -On 5th June 2022, can be recorded as one of the initiatives to set the path for nature-based solutions to modern-day concerns. To promote an environmentally conscious lifestyle that focuses on ‘mindful and deliberate utilization’ instead of ‘mindless and destructive consumption’. Vision of LiFE is to live a lifestyle that is in tune with our planet and does not harm it. And those who live such a lifestyle are called “Pro-Planet People”. Mission LiFE borrows from the past, operates in the present and focuses on the future. Reduce, Reuse and Recycle are the concepts woven into our life. The Circular Economy has been an integral part of our culture and lifestyle.
BY KHAS.
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