Is Banglore still Banglore??

Bangalore was famously known as "The Garden city". The name was given to her because she was filled with greenery. This small city was made up of parks, gardens, and roads sheltered by the tree's canopy. Bangalore being 3000-3100 ft above sea level (much higher than some of the hill stations like Ooty) was a very cool place that was featured with the early morning fog even in the summer. Bangalore was once a sight seeing place and used to delight everyone who visited her. The mist that used to settle down early in the morning, the dew drops on the grass blades, the light air, the fresh cool breeze, the silent surroundings with the sparrows chirping, the clean ponds and lakes, all of these made Bangalore a great place to live. Inviting more population, Bangalore slowly started to develop! Bangalore became the IT hub for the country and was called the "Silicon city of India".

A Barren land next to Koramangala intermediate ring road

13th Nov 2000

Same barren land filled with many MNCs

6th Jan 2008

Every Bangalorean was proud of the city's status as the IT Capital, but less they knew about the hazards of urbanisation. The rapid growth in the number of companies in Bangalore led to what i call the destruction of the city. There were countless call centres, IT companies and many other MNCs that were offering jobs and the demand gave high salaries to the employees and this raised the value of almost all the commodities. Which economists call as the effect of inflation. There was an exponential increase in the number of pick up and drop cabs, which resulted in the exponential increase in the traffic congestion, the existing infrastructure did not cope up with the pace the city was developing. Infrastructure started to improve.......

Indiranagar 100ft road and Air port road intersection (Domlur Flyover)

17th May 2007

The same intersection some time back

13th nov 2000

This, some people call "development", the a true Bangalorean calls it as "destruction of Bangalore's identity". Can u see the number of trees cut down just for this project. Back in the days, there was a variety of bird species and squirrels we could see, now we can hardly see any of these. There we migratory birds that visited Bangalore to nest their fowls, because Bangalore had large fresh water bodies and abundance of trees. Look at how polluted and dirty is the water that is flowing now. This is because this area has lost most of the natural cleaners like the birds.

Hebbal Flyover

13th April 2008

One of the engineering marvels of modern Bangalore. The planning of this multi take-off and landing Flyover is simply superb. It connects the parts of urban Bangalore to the rural ones, it also connects NH4(national highway 4), connects to Bangalore international Airport,Tumkur and Hyderabad. Bangloreans must be proud of this structure, but they should not be proud about the cost. Some might say it costed few hundred crores, I will say it costed a huge farming land. Check out the Hebbal lake, its so dirty and is not maintained at all.

Same place dome time back

13th Nov 2000

The Metro Rail project has brought down thousands of trees, along with many ancient trees those were more than 100 years old. These are just few examples, Bangalore has lost its charm. The climate has become erratic and the place is very polluted, this is not the Bangalore that i grew up in. It may be one of the most advanced cities but does not have the old parks, sparrows, light air, clean and green surroundings, and all the things that once made Bangalore. Now she has become a huge concrete jungle stuffed with population more than she can handle. Now she is filled with inconsiderate people who do not follow simple rules and people who are always busy and not bothered about her. She is also filled with pollution, traffic, crime, corruption, and much more. All of these are the effects of urbanisation.

There is nothing much we can do about it other than just feel bad. the Government needs to wake up and has to redifine the layout of Bangalore. The residential, commercial and industrial areas should be defined properly and should be strict about its implications. These area should be planned well and should be well connected. The only solution to reduce the urbanisation is to bring on secondary cities. The Government should aim on bringing up other cities around Bangalore, rather than just cashing in on the economic growth of the Bangalore.

Pics courtesy: Google Earth

Rain Water Harvesting

The simplest solution for the ever growing water scarcity.

Humans have always wanted water for almost all of their activities. They have found ways to get water to their house, right from pumping up water from a bore well to building dams and channeling water. Ages ago people used cattle to draw water from wells and rivers, it is said that the Egyptians built many canals and drew water from the Nile. Then people started the use of hand pumps, and now the motor pumps to pump up ground water. No one used the water that gets delivered to their house: THE RAIN. Except for the few farmers who planned their sowing period.

What is Ground water?

There are huge reservoirs just under (50-400 feet) the earth’s surface that has large amount of fresh water flowing. These reservoirs get their water from the rain. Rain water seeps through a layer of topsoil, then through a layer of rocks, which acts like a filter and purifies the water. This water dissolves some of the minerals as well. Humans access this water by means of wells and bore-wells.

Facts:

One: Only 5 % of the water on earth is fresh water and consumable by humans.
Two: 60% of this fresh water is in the form of glaciers in the mountain caps, Artic and Antarctic.
Three: A very high percentage of the remaining fresh water is contaminated and polluted.

Rain:

It is a natural distillation process. Sunlight evaporates only the water and leaves the impurities. Low temperature at the higher altitude cools the water vapor and precipitates the water down.

What is Rain water harvesting?

It’s very simple: Collecting rain water.

How to collect?

Create channels on your house, office and other buildings to collect all the water that falls on the building. You can even use the existing drain lines that these buildings have to drain away the rain water. Now we can collect his water in an underground chamber, or can be used for recharging ground water.

Lakes, ponds and some perennial rivers are examples of nature's own way of collecting rain water. Ground water is the nothing but the rain water that nature has been harvesting for millions of years now.

The growing need for water has made humans exploit all their resources, especially the ground water. Here in India most of them rely on ground water. About half of the houses in the city have bore wells and most of the rural population depends on wells. Nearly half of these vents have dried out due to over use. Humans are using water from these sources much faster than the nature can replenish them. So the simplest solution is to harvest free fresh water.

Rain Water Harvesting and Global Warming

Now everyone knows about global warming and its effects. The increase in green house gasses increases global warming. Some of the green house gasses are carbon-di-oxide CO2, Methane CH4, Nitrous Oxide N2O and water vapor. There are so many methods we would have heard about in reducing CO2, CH4 and N2O, but no method of reducing the water vapor in the atmosphere. The solution to this is Rain water harvesting. Rain water gets stored in the chambers or goes underground instead of stagnating on the surface, which is later evaporated leading to increase in water vapor in the atmosphere. This is the most effective solution I could think off. When I learnt that water vapor is a green house gas. I used to wonder what we could do to reduce the evaporation of water from oceans, lakes, rives, ponds, etc. There is actually nothing we can do about it, but we can reduce the amount of surface water.

Advantages of Rain water Harvesting

Over a period of time, floods and drought can be controlled.
Proper utilization can result in huge water collection.
Places which are far from the water sources can be benefited.
Replenish the rapidly reducing ground water.
Reduces green house effect.
It’s inexpensive.
Very easy to implement RWH.
Least or no maintenance required.
Ratio of return to investment is very high. Invest once and enjoy for ever.