My City My Responsibility - Safety measures during floods!!!

Dear All, 

Meetup in Kimaya

Pune has been flooding like never before, one of the major reasons is haphazard concretization happening around without the cognizance of the existing water channels and the network. Thus leaving no place but the roads and our apartments/societies for the rainwater to venture and find its pathway.

Nevertheless, a lot has been said on this, leaving us with the ONLY option as to WHAT we are supposed to do in such a situation in order to save ourselves???

As a matter of concern, we at Samuchit Enviro Tech, LAYA and INECC conducted our monthly session titled #ChallengingThanos-Submerging Cities for brainstorming on ACTIONS that we as individuals should undertake as part of the basic disaster preparedness or measures in such situations.

We conducted the session in an open cafe Kimaya in Kothrud, though it was noisy and a bit uncomfortable to brainstorm, I feel we managed it quite well. We conducted our Mentimeter (click here for mentimeter result) session to collate a list of BASIC measures we can take as individuals during floods from a bunch of 13 people. Below is the list for your reference. Note that you too can also add to the list either as a comment or message.  

1. First things first, be alert. If possible be home or wherever you are, avoid any travel if the weather forecast alerts heavy rainfall. We have to start trusting our forecasting systems like IMD, local news, even google weather app is useful to get an idea on the weather. Call your near and dear ones and make them aware and tell them to stay where they are if they are rushing to come home.

2. Nowadays we all prefer to have cashless transactions, however having some cash is a must during difficult times at home as well as in person. In case of floods especially, the first thing that gets hampered is electricity and then online network gets jammed. in such times your mobiles may also not work, so its crucial to have some cash and food handy and follow the first point. 

3. In order to use our smart phones ''smartly'', ensure phone battery is charged and phones are updated with google maps and other related social media apps. We all use Whats app and Facebook these apps can be used efficiently to inform each other about current conditions around you. These are one of the best handy mode of communication available with all of us. Important point to be noted, a lot of fake/old news also gets circulated sometimes, so instead of panicking or blindly forwarding such posts always ask for authentication of such news.

4. In case if you are caught in any critical situation, make sure you save yourself first, only if you are fine you can help others. So securing yourself should be the priority.

Following is a list of precautions to be taken in order to cope with the ill effects of urbanization. 

1. While buying a house, check if its not near or over a river or a canal or a stream. RiverView homes may not be so appealing if the river drains into your homes. Don't fall for such real estate marketing gimmicks. The rivers/riverbeds, canals and streams are the natural drainage systems, these need to be free from obstructions in any case. Any kind of construction of concreting ON or NEAR such areas is ultimately going to affect the person who resides near these areas.

2. Our societies should have disaster prepardness plan and appropriate equipment, emergency/first aid kit, emergency contact numbers and should conduct mock drills on regular intervals. We as a family and individual should be aware of these activities and if these are not present we need to ask for them and get it.  

3. Keeping oneself FIT is a crucial factor often neglected due to time constraint. Regular exercising keeps one active and alert during crisis. Make sure you do something to keep yourself fit. Swimming is a life saving skill now, we need to be equipped with it. 

4. Stock at least 7 days of food and cash in your homes at any time. You never know when you might need it. 

5. Following sustainable practices like growing your own food or having a backyard vegetable garden, harvesting rainwater, using household biogas or steam cookers, using renewable source of energy like solar heating and lighting systems turns out to be not only sustainable but are best rescue options when there's no electricity and food.

Climate Change is happening and is real believe it or not. Haphazard urbanization is accelerating its impacts and its you, me and our families who are vulnerable to these impacts. Its high time we start taking action for our survival. Its time we start asking for a climate adaptive, resilient and mitigation focused urban planning.  

Any comments are welcome!!!

Pournima Agarkar.

www.samuchit.com

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My City My Responsibility - Alternate riverfront development approach continued

Expert group discussion

Dear All, 

In continuation with my earlier blog on developing an alternate riverfront development approach as part of our Sustainably Smart Pune 2030 project, I would like to share some more insights. 

As mentioned earlier, the river stretch near Omkareshwar temple consists of a Dhobi Ghat and two public gardens Nana Nani Park and Vartak Garden, and a few religious and heritage spaces. Our idea was that the riverfront development should compliment these existing spaces while focusing on improving the health of riverbed areas. For the same we thought of having discussions with the concerned experts. 

Firstly we decided to meet Ketaki Ghate and Manasi Karandikar from Oikos for guiding us on plantation along the riverbed. Both Ketaki and Manasi are experts in restoration works and our riverbed areas require sound restoration strategy instead of planting some random tree species or having landscaped lawns. 

Dhobi Ghat near Omkareshwar Stretch

According to Ketaki, preference should be given to indigenous trees, that have both aesthetic and ecological attributes. It is important to note that exotic tree species are not bad but they should be selected carefully otherwise they can cause weeding and dominate over the native species hampering the local ecosystems. Tiered structure of plantation should be followed, where we have the trees then shrubs and then ground covers. There should be a good diversity in selecting tree species instead of monoculture. Hardscape areas can be negligible or if required should use local stone tiles like those seen in nature trails. Water requirements for this restoration works can be supplied through treatment plant set up for treating the wastewater from Dhobi Ghat as well as the one's set up for treating city's sewage. Tree species that can absorb additional impurities in the treated water can be used. 

In order to maintain these areas, local gardeners can be employed since they have the expertise. Technological interventions can include timer based drippers for efficient water supply and use of motion sensor based LED light fixtures wherever required. These are some of the ideas brainstormed. However, in order to make this a reality, budget is needed for each activity and hence in our study we are working out a tentative budget for this stretch as well.

Other experts we met include Sayali Joshi from Shristi Eco Research Institute (SERI) who is currently working for Assi river in Varanasi. She made a striking statement that our river is in an ICU state and hence she should be treated immediately by ensuring there is no access to the river by anybody as a first step. This viewpoint was also supported by Swati Gole from Ecological society who also mentioned that public should not be allowed to access the river for anything until the river is restored. 

I have seen people many a times throwing wastes, nirmalya and even food as part of some rituals in the river. I think its high time to change the way we look at our rivers and realize that they are the only source of potable water for us. Shailaja and team from Jeevitnadi are actively striving for the same through their work on river revival. 

Stay tuned for more on these studies in the next blog!

Pournima Agarkar. 

www.samuchit.com

My City My Responsibility - Alternate riverfront development approach

Dear All, 

As per my last blog under the Sustainably Smart Pune 2030 project, as part of the pilot studies that we are conducting, we are trying to define an approach to design an alternate riverfront development plan. 

Mutha river stretch near Omkareshwar temple

Manoj from Acwadam measuring the flowrate

We are working in coordination with Jeevitnadi, for the Omkareshwar temple stretch of the river. The whole idea of this study is to come up with a holistic and local specific plan while designing any development for the riverfront. Since river is not a single entity, it is an ecosystem and connected very deeply with our lives. Understanding local peoples interaction and attachment with the river, the ecological setting, heritage structures, traffic and transport, hydro-geology, religious activities etc are some of the many aspects we considered while undertaking the study.

On the same lines while undertaking a survey on this stretch, we found that this particular stretch of Mutha river, is dominated by religious activities and heritage structures that need to be preserved in order to sustain any riverfront development. There are two public gardens in the stretch, one is the Nana Nani park and other is Vartak garden. There is a Dhobi Ghat that belongs to some trust and employs some people while drains the wastewater into the river.

There is a so-called natural spring in the riverbed area that faces the backside of Omkareshwar temple. The spring water looks clear and fresh, many people use this water for bathing and washing clothes. On interacting with these people we found that this spring has been there since ages now and is always flowing and draining into the river. On measuring the flow of spring water in coordination with an expert Manoj from Acwadam, we found that daily the spring drains more than one lakh litres of clear water slowly into the river. Now that was something interesting! Though it looks like the water is getting wasted, it has some ecological significance as well.

We are in a process of identifying local conservation strategies for the spring and the people dependent on that water. Stay tuned for more on these studies! 

The intern working on this project is an architect from D.Y.Patil School of Archtecture Ar. Vishaka 

Pournima Agarkar.

www.samuchit.com

My City My Responsibility - Glimpse of riverfront development

Dear All,

Today I am posting one of the pictures from the draft riverfront development plan so that you get a glimpse of the riverfront development strategy.

Kindly post your comments on the below pictures with reasons, any suggestions for making riverfront development better are welcome. Looking forward to your comments!

Source: Draft Riverfront development plan, Pune

 Pournima Agarkar.


  

My City My Responsibility - River an Ecosystem

Dear All, 

We saw how grey water footprint is increasing in our city and why there is a need for urgent action to save our rivers. For the same, current approach considers river to be a single entity and concreting or beautifying the riverbank is seen as the solution to restore our rivers. However, it is important to understand that a river is an entire system that consists of living (aquatic plants, animals and microorganisms) and non living (physical and chemical) components that interact with each other with the help of energy and form an ecosystem. And the area that is drained by a river is known as the catchment area or a watershed. Considering this watershed and its linkages is a crucial aspect in any river restoration program, which is clearly missing in the current river development strategy. 

Mutha river, Pune

Our rivers are the source of freshwater for us. Hence preserving our river is very important for our own survival. Also note that our river is part of our natural heritage and needs to be conserved for our future generations.

On the same lines I came across a very interesting and thought provoking message. 

Title: Water
Grandfather saw it in River
Father saw it in Well
We saw in Tap
Our children will see it in Bottle
Where will our grand children see it in Capsule???

Pournima Agarkar.

My City My Responsibility - Towards River Revival

Dear All, 

Our city is full of role models because of which I feel fortunate to be a Puneite. These people not only motivate you but also create an awakening within you to do something for the city.  

One such personality is Mr. Vinod Bodhankar. He began with a citizens movement with the One hour per week for the city - an initiative to clean the garbage that other people throw around the nalas/streams or rivers. He believes that River is our mother and to ensure that our rivers are clean we need to understand that the waste we throw 'away', goes nowhere but right into our rivers polluting them.  

Later on, he initiated the SagarMitra Abhiyan in 2011 with the help of 150 students where each student had to collect plastic from his household for a month and get it to the school where it was then purchased by the Plastic Manufacturers and Recyclers for recycling. This initiative spread rapidly in the city through various schools and in six years i.e by Jan 2017 almost 4.8 lakh citizens of Pune city adopted the waste plastic segregation at source. Around 50 tons of plastic was fetched and given for recycling at zero cost of recollection and transport. 

From his work, it is very clear that awakening among mind and heart is required in order to awaken the hand for action. For the same, this Abhiyan focused on understanding a basic ideology that land slopes into stream, stream slopes into a river and a river slopes into an ocean. Hence when you throw plastic waste on land it ultimately goes into our oceans where the life below water suffers. We do see images where plastic is found in the stomach of the fishes and turtles by killing them. Sometimes resulting in even extinction of some species of fishes and destruction of some ocean ecosystems.

Awakening among the school going children with the help of this basic concept has impacted in segregation and collection of huge volumes of plastic waste from their homes to recycling. The sense of responsibility, understanding, involvement and service that the children have shown through this act can be easily replicated by all of us. 

If each of us decide to segregate only plastic from our household (which can be easily done) and send it to recycling. We will be contributing towards river revival and can save our rivers and the life below water for sure. Lets act upon it. 

Pournima Agarkar.

My City My Responsibility - Development versus Environment

Sustainable Development

Dear All, 

Our city is witnessing varied developmental challenges that threaten the very environment of the city both socially as well as ecologically. Few of the development issues that we are facing today is the construction along the riverside and dumping debris and untreated sewage into the river. Allowing construction in the Green and no development zones, de-reserving plots from a bird sanctuary and opening it up for construction and illegally shifting the blue and red flood lines of our river to allow construction etc. This is indeed a threat to our natural resources i.e land, rivers and biodiversity. 

I am seriously worried about our development that doesn't account for our environment. I am not against any new development in our city. I mean that we are in an era of Sustainable Development, where Environment and Development should go hand in hand. For the same, a lot of thought has to be put from social, environment & climate change and economic perspective, while considering any development in the city. With Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that we have in front of us to be met by 2030. We as citizens need to understand what is sustainability and act as watch dogs to see that our government is indeed adhering to it. We as citizens have the right to ask our developers about their decisions time and again. 

However this is one side of the coin on the other hand its time that our bureaucrats understand sustainability and start incorporating it. They should take conscious efforts to study the area before undertaking any sorts of development in that area. A lot of brainstorming needs to happen in order to understand the socio-economic inequities, ecological and climatic conditions of that area. Meanwhile it is important to maintain transparency as well by publishing the information online for local and national level experts and scientists for scrutiny. With the smart technology that we have today its very handy to share information and make right use of the same. Its quite feasible to accelerate this process through the use of technology even though it is time consuming. Since today's development projects are not full proof, it activates the environmental enthusiasts opposing the same which results in delay of the project as well as enormous financial losses. Ultimately its the common man who has to bear the burden through price hikes or taxes. 

As citizens its in our hands to be the guardians of our city and accordingly envision our city. We have the right to ask our local authorities about our surrounding development. 

Pournima Agarkar.