LAND TRANSFORMATION: A THREAT ON BANGALORE’S ECOLOGY - A CHALLENGE FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Land constitutes the most important character for sustainable development in a region. Rapid urbanization has become an area of crucial concern against the bonanza of urban ecology. The land use pattern of any urban area hints not only its immediate current space requirements of the inheriting community but rather the cumulative requirements over a period of year. Thus, the way a land use changes into, reveals a physical transformation of its economic use that indirectly unveils the demand for built-up space and as a result, the urban ecology is in imbroglio. For much of human existence, the available land for human use has appeared limitless. Wherever population densities have risen too high, there is a decline noticed in resource base. People moved on to occupy new lands by extending the urban area into rural fringe. Land transformation as the word suggests, traces the change of form in the land use. Land use change is an inevitable phenomenon in an urban space. How the use of land changed from one to another is a problem that has interconnections with various entities and the interaction between them in spatio-temporal environment. Bangalore over the years has grown as a robust technology hub, and has been ever- growing in terms of urban space with its inhabits. How this growth has affected its ecological space is the thrust of the study. The ecology of this urban land constitutes of agricultural plantation, forest area and lakes which comprise the green and blue spots. The objectives are accomplished through Geoinformatics which is able to apprehend statistics of ecological to the urban environment.Environmental Degradation, GIS, Remote Sensing, Digital Image Processing, Urban Land Transformation Analysis.

State Activities Impacts on the Residential Mobility Dynamics in Kandy and Suburbs

Residential mobility is becoming a significant phenomenon in the contemporary urbanized world. City residents engage in mobility, which influences the shaping and reshaping of urban spaces. Residential mobility takes place due to several determinants, and urban development activities of the state are one of the significant structural factors among them. Kandy is the second-largest city in Sri Lanka which has been declared as a World Heritage City in 1988 by the UN. The Government of Sri Lanka has implemented urban policies, regional and city plans, urban development programmes, and strategic projects to preserve the unique urban characteristics of Kandy city. The objective is to assess how far state activities are responsible for the present residential mobility dynamics in Kandy city and its suburbs. The attributes of urbanisation and resultant neighbourhood changes discovered from the study conducted between 2016 - 2018, by collecting secondary data from relevant sources. Primary data which was acquired through indepth interviews, key informant interviews, unstructured discussions and observations comprises a part of the study. The study resulted in identifying the dynamics of an urban neighbourhood and its residential mobility changes. State activities are directly and indirectly stimulating the urban residential mobility diffusion waves towards Kundasale suburb that promote Kundasale as a popular residential suburb of Kandy city. The process, prospects, and products of urbanisation and residential mobility are discussed in detail in this paper

Environmental degradation of Mallathalli Lake in Bangalore district, India - a case study

An attempt was made to carry out baseline in-​situ anal. of Malathalli lake. The lake falls within the Vrishabhavathi lake valley and Byramangala lake series. The catchment area of the lake is about 625 ha. It is located on the western fringe of Bangalore city. Assessment of physico-​chem. parameters was carried out mainly for pH, dissolved oxygen, BOD, suspended solids, total dissolved solids, alky., hardness, nitrates, phosphates, sulfates, sodium, potassium, fluorides and chlorides. Malathalli is a contaminated lake with indicators of org. pollution showing highly variable sources of inputs. Dissolved oxygen is within lower limits at 3.25mg​/L supporting the field observation on the dwindling fish catch in the lake. Moreover, the fish diversity is also disappearing leaving only those exotic species capable of tolerating lower DO levels. The av. BOD is 6.0 mg​/L. The pH is also above permissible limit at 8.9 showing alk. nature of the lake. The total dissolved solids (TDS) were above permissible levels at 508 mg​/L. For total hardness, the av. was at 215.5 mg​/L. Av. calcium hardness was 86.6 mg​/L as CaCO3. Inorg. ions such as sodium (Na+)​, potassium (K+)​, calcium (Ca2+) and magnesium (Mg2+) have varied concns. during the months. The max. sodium (Na+) concn. was in the month of June with 400 mg​/L while the lowest was in Jan. at 95.8 mg​/L. Magnesium hardness was above permissible limit at 128.8 mg​/L as CaCO3. This shows a trend in ionic imbalances through the months in the lake caused by artificial contamination. This can also be correlated with excessive presence of Mg+ ions at an av. 31.4 mg​/L. Chlorides were also above permissible level at 262 mg​/L. Occurrence of hydroxide ions in natural water is very rare, but in Jan., hydroxide alky. of 3.3 mg​/L as CaCO3 was found. Sulfates (SO42-​) were with overall av. range of 40.3 mg​/L. For phosphates (PO43-​)​, the av. was at 4.4 mg​/L. Nitrates also were within tolerable limits of ICMR and BIS. The av. nitrates concn. was at 10.9 mg​/L as nitrates. However, the chloride-​bicarbonate ratio of 2.2 confirms the seriousness of the status of pollution in the lake