MUMBAI GREEN COVER

Oct. 19, 2021

Mumbai lost 81% of its open land (barren spaces without any vegetation), 40% green cover (forests & scrublands) and approximately 30% of its water bodies (lakes, ponds, floodplains) between 1991 and 2018, while the built-up area (areas developed upon) rose by 66% in the same period, says a recent study.

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It concludes that the city witnessed a 2-degree Celsius average temperature rise across 27 years.
With this pace of urbanisation and landscape transformation, it is expected that the Urban Heat Island intensity will further increase in the city.
The extreme heat that one experiences while strolling through any urban landscape is caused by the Urban Heat Island effect, a micro-climatic phenomenon. This is due to a number of causes, the most prominent being the usage of materials such as concrete
This will not only deteriorate the urban thermal environment but also increase the serious risks to health for city dwellers. This rise in heat intensity in Mumbai is linked to the declining green cover in the city, which is the result of the large-scale transformation of the green cover into built-up land for the infrastructural development in the city.

Source : The Hindu