River restoration lost urban stream in industrial city of Ludhiana

Abstract

Industrial cities have long been and will continue to be the backbone of progress and wealth, but they are now the clear cause of the death of the city's environment, flora, and fauna. The lack of resilient water quality restoration strategies in these places is a necessity. As India's water situation worsens, this project aims to develop effective water quality management solutions. These include a variety of projects aimed at encouraging water conservation on the one hand and improving water use efficiency in the industrial, residential, and agricultural sectors on the other. Buddha nala, a tributary of the Sutlej River in Ludhiana, Punjab, is one such situation where the river has not only degraded, but hazardous wastes from all industries have been discharged with city wastewater and rainwater, causing health problems in the city. This thesis envisions to transform a contaminated stream in the heart of Ludhiana, Punjab into a urban landscape river; while improving cities ecology and quality of life while contributing to the Sutlej’s broader water ecology. The restoration of such river streams converted to nala's will not only have a huge impact on the ecology of the watershed basin, but will also provide communal areas for river activities. Water quality was assessed through sampling at several locations, and remediation solutions were considered, as well as a combination of bioengineering technologies. This thesis demonstrates a detailed landscape assessment approach and identifies how a natural stream turned nala can contribute to the ecology after restoration while revitalising the city's health, which is clogged with industrial spaces and no open green spaces or vacant land that could be used to treat degraded water. There are possibilities for regaining its functionality