Reducing the negative effects of urbanization in Ayodhya (India) with a sustainable and participatory approach
Context
The city of Ayodhya is known as a temple city and attracts tens of thousands of pilgrims daily. This makes Ayodhya a rapidly growing city. A new master plan is being created with projects for housing, infrastructure (hotels, hospitals, etc.) and commercial activities. Combined with climate change, unwanted heat stress can increase both within the built-up area and in the surrounding regions. Therefore, it is important for a traditional city like Ayodhya to have a plan to protect the thermal comfort of both residents and visitors.
Heat-conscious urban development can be achieved using advanced tools for modelling urban growth, monitoring heat stress and analysing scenarios. However, this requires sufficient knowledge and expertise, not only from local government agencies but also from researchers and future urban planners.
Objectives
The two-year project "Building Capacity of Faculty Staff, Students and Youth on Urban Climate Resilience, Ayodhya implementation" commenced in January 2022 and was soon shortened to the acronym BCAUSYOUCARE. The project, which enjoyed funding from the Department of Environment through the Flemish Climate Action Programme 2021, aimed to build and transfer knowledge and expertise on urban heat stress, and necessary adaptation, in India as a direct result of climate change.
The target audience was very diverse, ranging from high school students to academics and government officials. And, to combine theory and practice, Ayodhya was chosen as a demonstration city, also because Ayodhya continues to receive a lot of interest in India as a growing temple city. This allowed Ayodhya to be used as a practical example, which facilitated knowledge transfer while at the same time the project itself, and thus the focus on climate change, could receive sufficient attention.
Highlights
In the project, VITO and the Faculty of Architecture and Planning (FoAP) of the local university (AKTU) worked hand in hand. VITO has the necessary experience in and tools to simulate urban growth and climate change, while AKTU has the necessary knowledge and connections to translate scientific knowledge into manageable communication material. Moreover, AKTU's students were trained as future urban planners and therefore, the ideal audience for the next generation to consciously deal with the impact of climate change.
Various classroom training sessions were organized by AKTU and VITO giving university students hands-on experience with thermal comfort measurements and land use mapping. Detailed mapping data obtained by the students in Ayodhya was subsequently incorporated into a dashboard and further analyzed by VITO in terms of potential heat stress. The analyses were in turn validated by means of in-situ measurements taken by students and weather stations.
The dashboard, containing over 200 GIS data layers pertaining urban growth, climate change, flooding and thermal comfort, is now being used by the Ayodhya Development Authority as input for sustainable and climate-resilient urban planning. This has been complimented with local observations and socio-demographic data and converted, by local architectural office Dharatal Inc., into a first-ever thermal comfort plan, prioritizing urban areas and listing short, medium and long-term adaptation actions.
To exchange knowledge in terms of climate adaptation, academic staff from FoAP visited Belgium and interacted with Flemish administrations (notably VMM and Dept. Omgeving). Visits to locations across Flanders allowed staff to see practical implementations of climate adaptation measures. FoAP itself reached out to over 13 high-schools and initiated the CLImate Change Knowledge for Schools (CLICKS) program, reaching out to over 3000 students to raise awareness about climate change through lectures and thermal comfort measurement campaigns.
Facts
Budget: 234.690€ of which 199.486€ subsidized
Funded by the Government of Flanders through the Flanders International Climate Action Programme (FICAP) – IKF/05
Implemented by VITO and the Faculty of Architecture and Planning (A.P.J. Abdul-Kalam Technical University of Lucknow)
