By Harini Nagendra
Cities like Bangalore are on a breakneck path to growth, becoming concentrations of pollution, stress, and disease. Episodes of flood and drought demonstrate why we must begin to think ecologically about Bangalore’s lakes, and understand their history, to engage with our collective urban future in Indian cities. Bangalore was built on a firm basis of local ecology, a semi-arid city that created irrigation tanks (now called lakes) from the wetlands in the region, used as commons to foster the growth of settlements and the expansion of the city. Over centuries, as the region became more urbanised, Bangalore ruptured its once close connect to lakes, transforming the ecology of the city and its periphery beyond recognition. This talk will discuss how we need to learn from the ecological history of Bangalore’s lakes, to re-design the city to accommodate its ecology, ensuring human wellbeing as well as resilience to climate change.
© Harini Nagendra
Harini Nagendra is the Director of the Azim Premji University’s Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability. She is known for her research spanning over 30 years on forest conservation, and urban sustainability, and is on Stanford University’s list of the top 2% cited scientists in the world. Her books include Nature in the City: Bengaluru in the Past, Present and Future, and the co-authored books Cities and Canopies: Trees of Indian Cities; and Shades of Blue: Connecting the Drops in India’s Cities. She also writes the acclaimed Bangalore Detectives Club series, historical mysteries set in 1920s Bangalore.
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