Water sensitive urbanism: case of Hyderabad city

Abstract

The landscape of India is dotted with lakes, ponds, and wetlands. The lakes have historically fulfilled the population's water needs for decades, and a regional management scheme has kept them running for a long time. Rapid urbanization has had a negative impact on both the physical quality of living in cities and the natural world, as has economic growth. Human intrusion disrupts normal patterns to the point that their interdependence is disrupted. The ratio of resource use to resource output is influenced. As a result, natural resources have run out and been contaminated. In terms of the water supply, the result is a steady drying of natural water supplies, monsoon rains, and a gradually diminishing water level. With most Indian cities are struggling with these problems, Hyderabad is also one example of a city dealing with urban floods and shrinking water sources. Hyderabad, once a city with thousands of lakes, has experienced significant urban flooding in the last two decades as a result of its natural and man-made lakes and tanks. With the city's interconnected intricate water network of reservoirs, nallahs, and the Musi River, even minor changes in one aspect impact the whole system. The Musi River is dry and stagnant as a result of diminishing lake bed and catchment areas, encroached and polluted nallahs and wetlands, and dried up sub-basins. As a result, there is a need for nature-based strategies to combat the negative impacts of urbanization, as well as techniques to revitalize the Musi River by competing with lake sub-basins linked to the river while maintaining a solid public domain.