Urban green space planning for compact city environments a study on Bengaluru

Abstract

Out of 20 most polluted cities in the world, 14 cities belong to India. This clearly demonstrates the negligence of natural environment and the integration of ecological approach to Spatial Development and Planning. Being a country with diversity in natural and social systems, we can have a better result if we correct the approach of our planning strategies. All we need is to realise and move towards the nature-based solutions in order to make the places and cities liveable with improved quality of life and resilience. So, my thesis targets the integration of spatial development and ecological preservation, planning under the same umbrella. To start with, I have followed the systems approach which taught me the influences of social and ecological systems on each other, then the embedded economic approach which provides me a base for integration of economic and ecological principles. In India, there is a city named Bengaluru which was called a ‘’Garden city’’ of India is losing its status because of uncontrollable urbanisation and heavy population growth within the past 10 years of time. This phenomenon made me curious to study the city and deal with the spatial disturbances and nature-based planning solutions for the sustainable planning and management. After the broad study and observations of the whole city I have decided to work on urban green spaces by considering a smaller area in the peripheral part which got fair chances to undergo rapid changes in the built-up. The study starts with the understanding of dynamics and spatial growth in the whole city using land use land cover change and the direction of growth through Shannon’s entropy which helped me to identify the smaller area in the white field subdivision for a detailed green space layout planning. A detailed site analysis was performed both qualitatively and quantitively. As a part of quantitative analysis, residents’ attitude towards the existing condition of green spaces and associated problems with them. And with respect to quantitative analysis, ecosystem service quantification has been done to decide upon the methodology of green space area as well as green space type quantification. v Institutional and legislative support is one of the main factors to make any planning practice successful. In order to assess and correct the institutional setup, a detailed study has been done on the national, state policies with respect to development, environment and its reflection on the masterplan and smaller scale plans. Then the loopholes in the master plan and urban development policies has been identified and recommendations were suggested for the proper management and support to the spatial development, which leaves me with a question of how to fix these things on ground. In order to achieve the clarification on placement and its methodology a detailed analysis on the topography of the site along with the land surface temperature analysis which helped me to identify the location of proposed green spaces. The debate of types of green spaces has been closed by considering the context of the site. As a result, the types of green space which I have considered are biodiversity park which can be called as an urban jungle, wetland ecological park, recreational parks and agricultural experience park. The proportion of green spaces has been done based on the ecosystem quantification and the context of study area. The proposed layout with modified areas under built-up, green spaces, and open areas has been justified with the spatial requirement for the projected population and the permissible built-up in the area by the developmental policies. Since I am planning for green spaces for a compact environment, I have considered the scenario of what if the total FAR has been consumed, how can we accommodate the new greens while preserving the old one. The rapid growth of Bengaluru acted as a limitation for generating few more FAR scenarios in very short span. Finally, the layout design proves that with the integration of compact and green space planning, there is quite possibility of achieving better results in space utilisation and wellbeing of the residents.