Urban resilience and sustainability

The continued rapid growth of cities inexorably, causing many to think that inevitably their environmental impact will worsen, raises a number of persistent questions. The urbanization and sprawl engulfing land with swallowing demands including more and more rural areas, has caused a highly dynamic and un-organized transit for peri-urban areas which are yet to be recognized clearly in legal or planning definitions, and more so in terms of their significance, in extending carrying capacity to the cities and urban activities, through the assimilative and supporting capacities of their ecosystems, besides buffering risk of natural and anthropogenic disasters, along with the implications of climate change. There are concrete ways to improve the decision-making process to guide cities toward the aspired benefits. These include assessment and planning tools and mechanisms, policies and regulations, project cycle management with environmental decisions, cost-benefit etc. However, there is not as yet a systematic approach mainstreamed to incorporate issues of peri-urban land-use and ecological strengths and weaknesses in terms of contribution towards urban resilience against climatic and disaster risks. Most cities and towns not only in developing countries particularly of Asia Pacific, but also many in the developing nations, are suffering with hydro-climatic disasters or like situations almost regularly. This challenging situation has grown more in past two decades, which has witnessed a fast growth of cities around the world and migration from rural and country sides across various jurisdictions, driven by many factors including social aspirations, pull and push both factors, and social, conflict, disasters, and several other causes. Climate change is behind many of these causative factors as it aggravates both – hazards and vulnerability. Biggest sufferer in land-regime, of this growing challenge and nexus, are the peri urban areas which continue to provide ecosystem support services but struggle for recognition by the city or regional environmental planners or policy makers. A number of pilot interventions have been undertaken to study and document the ground issues pertaining to peri-urban challenges, role of ecosystems, issues of livelihood, disaster risk reduction and adaptation, where The Rockefeller Foundation supported programmers were significant in India as well. Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) project supported interventions of climate resilience and adaptation programmers through improved planning process in several cities where reference to peri-urban systems emerged prominently. Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group (GEAG) as a key player has been undertaking several studies and projects in many parts of the country. Lessons of these studies are important to be utilized and mainstreamed into the policy planning and capacity building process to address the gap areas in understanding, practice and capacities of key stakeholders in addressing the issues of peri-urban and urban-planning with emphasis on role of ecosystems in enhancing resilience of the land, people, resources, infrastructure and associated economic interventions. With the objective, and the case studies and experiences available in background, a handbook of practice guidance and training module
along with implementation manual, has been developed, for wider use and reference. While developing the document has utilized a range of other literature, data and information, from published and unpublished sources, all the original sources are sincerely acknowledged.

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