Management of urban green spaces based on users' perception: a case of Bhubaneswar

Abstract

With rapid urbanization in India over the past years, our cities have been undergoing densification due to limited availability of land. In this process, often providing for green and healthy spaces comes as a major challenge. To top it off, the requirement for other land uses say, residential, institutional or commercial comes at the cost of the available green spaces. With the depleting greens, we are headed towards a concrete jungle that promotes air pollution, soil erosion, urban heat island effect and increased carbon content in atmosphere to name a few, that lead on to further harm to our environment. Urban green spaces (UGS) are immensely beneficial and these act as our lungs within the city fabric.Despite all, planning for UGS as a critical sector has always been neglected. The low per capita green space availability in Indian cities is a proof of the unhealthy lifestyle we live in. This calls for an urgent need to re-establish the lost greens in our cities and plan for more. Though we have mostly been confused with Public Open Spaces (POS) and Urban Green Spaces (UGS) and have dedicated spaces for squares, plazas or streetscapes, we haven’t been able to achieve the requisite green cover or manage to strike a balance between the built up and the greens. Congested development post-independence, presence of greens in patches, lack of understanding in growth patterns and ecological function, disrepair and conversion to other uses, lack of water supply are some of the issues that have led to depleting green spaces in our cities. In addition, multiple challenges in governance and management of rapid urbanization or implementing research works into action plans or policies, followed by non-availability of green space management and structuring plan have aggravated the issue. This is the hour of need for spatial, developmental and operational planning instead of just fulfilling statistical data. A study by Das, T., Jana, A., Sutradhar, A., shows that the City of Bhubaneswar, especially BMC area experienced a loss of 23.47 km2 vegetation cover over three decades from 1991-2021 with the rate of depletion being 0.78 km2/year. The land use dedicated also reduced drastically and patches of depletion in vegetation cover is observed. The research design starts with selection of site for study from the three planning zones in the city and based on NDVI mapping of Bhubaneswar from 1991 till 2021. This is followed by studying the need for green space management and the requisite guidelines, and defining the scope and limitation of work as looking into the operational management of Urban Green Spaces (and not involving generation of new UGS) that are accessible to public. With the purpose of understanding the significance attached by people and utilization of UGS, this research aims at refining the operational management of Urban Green Spaces at ward level, with special focus on Wards 7,40 and 60; considering various aspects like spatial distribution, accessibility, frequency and purpose of usage, current status in terms of issues and level of services. The analysis starts with a primary survey of the said wards for identifying, annotating and classifying the existing UGS, which is followed by a detailed household level Questionnaire and Maptionnaire survey to understand the perception of ward residents regarding purpose of usage, frequency of visit, studying accessibility pattern, understanding the level of services available, people’s willingness to travel for accessing an UGS, the reasons for non-use etc. The study also shows visit by people outside of their wards for UGS that have different amenities or better LoS. The survey goes hand in hand with analysis from open street maps for the presence and changes in UGS present in the wards. A study of the existing development plans and interaction with the concerned authorities like Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC), Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) and provisions under AMRUT and/or Smart Cities Mission helps in grasping of the current management guidelines, schemes and policies in place and institutional framework, that would need updating and/or intervention. Exploring further from secondary sources leads to measures for restoration of old, development of new and management of existing Urban and Green Spaces in our cities. The outcome of this research is a guiding document containing classification of UGS present, setting the Levels of Services based on hierarchy on strategies for Green Space Management with suggestive institutional and policy interventions.