1028% increase in paved surface during 1973 to 2017 (Figure 4.1)
Solution: Enough is Enough, DECONGEST BANGALORE.

Bangalore is experiencing unprecedented rapid urbanisation and sprawl in recent times due to unrealistic concentrated developmental activities. This has led to the large scale land cover changes with serious environmental degradation, posing serious challenges to the decision makers in the city planning and management process involving a plethora of serious challenges such as climate change, enhanced emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG), lack of appropriate infrastructure, traffic congestion, and lack of basic amenities (electricity, water, and sanitation) in many localities, etc.

Figure 4.1: Land use dynamics in Bengaluru
Table 4.1: Land use dynamics of Bangalore

Urbanisation and loss of natural resources (wetlands and green spaces):  Urbanisation during 1973 to 2017 (1028% concretization or increase of paved surface) has telling influence on the natural resources such as decline in green spaces (88% decline in vegetation), wetlands (79% decline), higher air pollutants  and sharp decline in groundwater table. Figure 4.1 depicts the unrealistic urban growth during the last two decades. Quantification of number of trees in the region using remote sensing data with field census reveals that there are only 1.5 million trees to support Bangalore's population of 9.5 million, indicating one tree for every seven persons in the city. This is insufficient even to sequester respiratory carbon (ranges from 540-900 g per person per day). Geo-visualisation of likely land uses in 2020 through multi-criteria decision making techniques (Fuzzy-AHP: Analytical Hierarchal Process) reveals calamitous picture of 93% (Table 4.1) of Bangalore landscape filled with paved surfaces (urban cover) and drastic reduction in open spaces and green cover. This would make the region GHG rich, water scarce, non-resilient and unlivable, depriving the city dwellers of clean air, water and environment.