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The existing infrastructure available in the cities unable to cope with the existing population pressure is stretched even more now with the expansion of the city limit areas. The growth of
industries and of late the service sector in the country have put an immense pressure on the local bodies to expand the city limits. Surat is one of the best examples having expanded the
city limits areas in 2006 from 112 Sq.km to 326 Sq.km. In case of the strategic metropolis, which are now potentially full to their capacity, are following up with the expansion of the
city limits but under separate administrative units; more prominent examples being National Capital Region NCR in case of Delhi and Navi Mumbai in case of Mumbai. The expanded
city limits too have to depend on the core of the city to meet the basic infrastructure demands. Moreover the human resource for these industries also comes from the core city area
followed by the gradual shifting towards the periphery as the infrastructure needs are catered to e.g. middle income population, and sometimes more abruptly e.g. low incomemigrant
population. Analysis of the older metropolitan cities and the new metropolitan cities in the country reveals that the core population is actually decreasing in the older ones except
Bangalore while in the newer ones it is the core which is growing in density Bhagat, 2005
2.2
Resource Context - Urban Metabolism dependence on external resources
Water is indispensable ‘stuff’ for maintaining the metabolism, not only of our human bodies, but also of the wider social fabric. The very sustainability of cities and the practices of
everyday life that constitute ‘the urban’ are predicated upon and conditioned by the supply, circulation, and elimination of water.
Erik Swyngedouw The concept of an urban metabolism provides a means of understanding the sustainable
development of cities by drawing analogy with the metabolic processes of organisms. The parallels are strong: “Cities transform raw materials, fuel, and water into the built
environment, human biomass and waste” Decker et al. 2000. The metabolism of an urban area is an interconnection of space, urban infrastructure and material inflows which are
dependent on external resources – mainly energy and water. Urban metabolism can be defined as “the sum total of the technical and socio-economic processes that occur in cities,
resulting in growth, production of energy, and elimination of waste” Kennedy et al. 2007. The metabolism of an ecosystem involving the production, via photosynthesis, and
consumption, by respiration, of organic matter is often expressed by ecologists in terms of energy. A few studies of urban metabolism have focused on quantifying the embodied energy
in cities, while others have more broadly included fluxes of nutrients and materials, and the urban hydrologic cycle Kennedy, 2007
2.3 Constraints on water supplies and natural resources
It is important for city managers and policy makers to understand the metabolic processes considering the extent of the near and far resources they depend on, understand the critical
processes involved as well as their exhaustion rate, and when alarmed by shortage, develop suitable measures to reduce the dependency, augment the resource linkages and increase the
efficiency of the systems. Cities in India primarily depend on water from external resources, often pumped from long distances. Several growth factors such as increasing population,
changing land-use pattern, change in social attitude, and dependence on energy for daily activities including urban transportation severely influence the material inflow and outflow.
The stock and flows through the cities if not monitored reach critical levels and leads to falling of ground water table, rising energy consumption, accumulation of waste, increase in
urban heat island effect, degradation in public health among others. In absolute terms where
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the population of the cities is growing, there is a change in the metabolism of the cities and the per capita energy requirement is on the rise. Climate change exacerbates the material and
energy flow in the cities. A simple example is the rising per capita electricity consumption for summer cooling during the period of extended summer months. In order to meet the material
and energy demands a large number of secondary cities in India are undergoing massive transformation through investment in infrastructure especially water supply, urban
transportation, energy, recycling systems.
Cities are on the trend of becoming more material intensive and have therefore strained the existing natural resources especially water resources, agricultural land and forests, pollution
of streams and overall quality of life. Many cities and their catchments are likely to get less precipitation and have more constrained freshwater resources – which is particularly
problematic for growing cities as well as large cities facing serious problems obtaining freshwater supplies Danilo J, 1993. Although agriculture remains the largest user of
freshwater resources within virtually all national economies, the water demands from urban enterprises and consumers have become increasingly important in most nations. In addition,
many major cities have had to draw freshwater from increasingly distant sources, as local surface and groundwater sources are no longer able to meet the demand for water, or as they
become depleted or polluted. In many coastal cities, local groundwater supplies have been depleted to the point where saline intrusion limits freshwater supplies Hardoy et. al., 2001.
In many cities the failure to manage the water resources as on date is independent of climate change. For instance the distribution losses are far more linked to inadequate governance than
to water shortage. Further the rate of water consumption versus few or no options of reuse makes it unsustainable.
The water crisis is related to the poor distribution of water and in many cases it is now observed as lack of water at source. The National Capital Region in India Delhi and
surrounding environs faces a severe water shortfall and is competing with irrigated agriculture upstream. Drinking water is being transported to meet the demands of this city of
15 million, from over 300km, and yet unaccounted-for water losses are over 40 per cent in the city. Rising temperatures and therefore energy demand for cooling, increasing
precipitation variability, a lower number of rainy days, an unsustainable mining of groundwater and a heavily polluted river system could make the Delhi mega-urban region,
with its projected population of over 30 million, unsustainable, in spite of the rapid growth in its income and wealth Revi, 2007. Most of the urban local bodies prefer to the respond to
the rising deficit by augmenting existing water supply via tapping new distant and often costliest water resources, while not investing on tapping soft water paths
Gleick, 2003
through reducing distribution losses and recycling. Untargeted subsidies are a major disincentive for household level conservation practices. The energy bills incurred for tapping
these external resources are significantly high.
The Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC noted the different ways in which climate variability and change are likely to affect urban water supply and sewage systems
ibid. Increased temperatures are likely to cause an increase in demand for water. Further, any reduction in the local water sources due to climate change is also likely to increase the
demand on regional water supplies. IPCC reports have noted that the impacts on water supplies will arise as a result of extreme weather condition influenced largely by climate
change. Droughts and floods will be on the rise, threatening the water resources of many cities. Flood waters are usually contaminated by the overflow from individual latrines, septic
tanks, open drains and sewers. It has been observed in the case of Indore that slums located in the peripheral areas do not have basic drainage and sewerage infrastructure – or if they do, it
serves a very small section of the population. For such infrastructure deficient locations,
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health is of a great concern throughout the year. Design of infrastructure to improve the services for the poor are often not informed by local context and maintenance issues are often
neglected, resulting in partial or complete failure soon after commissioning.
2.4 Urban Infrastructure upgradation, finance autonomy issues
