A CRONYMS AND A BBREVIATIONS
Premise 5: Humans (as Homo economicus) need to look for new processes that are low in entropy by virtue of operating as close to normal temperatures and pressures 51 (say bio & nano
5.1 Introduction
This Chapter deals with the Case Study of Guwahati City as a development process and explores the energy and mass input and waste output (CO2 & waste heat). The sectors comprise of electricity and fossil fuel71 consumption, embodied energy in buildings, and AFOLU which comprises of forest to settlements, fuelwood, agriculture and wetlands. The sectoral studies namely: 1. Electricity, 2. Fossil fuels, 3. Building, and 4. AFOLU have been described individually with sector specific data sources, methods, findings, discussion and analysis. At the end, key findings have been summed up from all sectors, and the total and per capita entropy generation and CO2 emission for the city have been worked out.
Structure of the Case Study: The Chapter is divided into three parts. Part A gives an introduction of Guwahati city its population and built up along with the city ecosystem in brief.
Part B contains the Case Study methodology. Part C contains the sectoral studies. The sectors studied are depicted in the Fig No. 5.1.
71 Petrol (MS), High Speed Diesel (HSD), Kerosene (K/OIL) & LPG
Fig No. 5.1: Sectors in Guwahati Case Study
PART A 5.2 Guwahati City: An Introduction
The study area comprises of Guwahati city which is located in the northeastern region of India and situated between 260 5' to 260 13' N latitude and 910 35' to 910 52' E longitude, on the banks of the river Brahmaputra72. For the study, area under the Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA)73 was considered. GMDA's jurisdiction extends over an area of 262 sq. km.
covering the entire Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC)74 area, entire North Guwahati Town Committee area and some revenue villages of Silasundari Ghopa Mouza, Pub Barsar Mouza, Dakhin Rani Mouza, Ramcharani Mouza, Beltola Mouza. The city falls within the civil jurisdiction of Kamrup (Metro) district, which was a part of the erstwhile Kamrup District (GMDA 2009, Gogoi 2011). The location map of the study area is shown in Map No. 5.1
5.2.1 Topography of Guwahati
The topography of the city is undulating varying in elevation from 49.5m to 55.5m above Mean Sea Level (MSL). The land is interspersed with a large number of hills.. The central part of the city has small hillocks namely Sarania hill (193m), Nabagrah hill (217m), Nilanchal hill (193m) and Chunsali hill (293m) (GMDA Plan, 2009). The Agiathuri hill, and Maliata hill lie on the northern and western boundary of the city limits. The Buragosain Parbat in the East and the hills of Rani and Garbhanga in the south form the major hill formations of the city. These hills make contiguous formations with the hills of Meghalaya. There are total of 18 hills in the city.
The total reported area covered by hills in GMDA area is 6881 Ha (Anon 2010). The hill tracts are mostly covered with forests. The hills within the GMDA area are shown in Map No. 5.2.
72 Brahmaputra River is one of the major rivers of Asia flowing through Tibet (China), India and Bangladesh having a length of 2900 km and having a basin area of 712,035 km2.
73 GMDA was established in 1992 as per Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority Act 1985. It replaced the erstwhile Guwahati Development Authority constituted in 1962 under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1959
74 GMC is the local urban body of Guwahati formed in 1971 by the Guwahati Municipal Corporation Act, 1969
5.2.2 The Forests of Guwahati
The hills are mostly covered, barring the rocky outcrops, with forests of various formations ranging from Sal forests, Mixed Moist Deciduous Forests, Evergreen Forest, Bamboo Brakes and Secondary Scrub Forests. The forests in and around the city fall under the Kamrup (East) Forest Division. The management of the forest tracts are carried out as per prescriptions of the Working Plans. As per the working plans, there are a total of 14 Reserved Forests (RF) within and on the immediate periphery of the city area. The total RF area comes to 33342.55 Ha comprising of Rani RF(1882, 4361.584 Ha), Maliata RF (1915, 324.776 Ha), Agiathuri Hill RF (1917, 363.196 Ha), Garbhanga RF (1926, 11441.28 Ha), Garbhanga 1st Addition (1990, 7395 Ha), Khanapara RF (1953, 994 Ha), Fatasil RF (1966, 669.02 Ha), Amchang RF (1972, 5318 Ha), South Amchang RF (1990, 1550 Ha), Hengrabari RF (1972, 579 Ha), Gotanagar RF (1984, 171 Ha), Sarania RF (1989, 7.99 Ha), South Kalapahar RF (1989, 70 Ha), and Jalukbari RF (1990, 97.70 Ha). (Jacob 1938, Das 1973, Swargowari 2002). The first figure in the brackets is the year of notification of the RF, while the second figure is area of the RF in Hectares. The forests on the southern periphery of the city have Sal formations mixed with patches of Evergreen and bamboo formations. The forests in the city show Moist Mixed Deciduous forest formations. Where soil is shallow and poor, stunted growth of bamboo and scrub occur. The working plan records over the years show that the density of the forests have progressively declined. To quote M. C. Jacob (1940), “Existing Unclassed State Forests are being jhumed extensively, have been and being rapidly taken up for cultivation by immigrants from Bengal as well as the indigenous people and are deteriorating rapidly under uncontrolled exploitation of forest produce given free to settlement holders and by grazing. It is, therefore, only a question of time before this type of forest is wiped out.” Increase in population is one of the most important parameters leading to forest depletion. The Forests of the city are depicted in Map No. 5.3.
5.2.3 Wetlands of Guwahati
The Guwahati city is drained on the north by the Brahmaputra river. The other major rivers and streams are Amchang nadi, Bashsitha nadi (Barpani), Bharalu nadi, Bonda nadi, Bukat nadi, Kalmani nadi, Kana nadi and Mora nadi. There are several other streams and rivulets. The Deepar Beel75 is the largest water body and a Ramsar site76. Part of its also declared as wildlife sanctuary77. The other main waterbodies are Borsola beel, Bordal beel, Chunchuki beel, Damal beel, Hachora beel, Khalkhowa beel, Rangagora beel, Silsako beel, Tepal beel, Thengbhanga beel and Thupdhara beel. There are several other water bodies, swamps and mud pools in the city limits. In addition, the largest man made water tank is the Dighali Pukhari. The other major water tanks are Silpukhuri and Jurpukhuri (two ponds together). There are several other artificial water tanks in the city. Some of these names have been variously extracted by the author from the topographic sheets pertaining to Guwahati. The main rivers and wetlands of Guwahati are depicted in Map No. 5.4.
5.2.4 Agriculture in Guwahati
Most of the low lying areas in the city limits, in the earlier days, been subject to cropping. As the city grew, the agricultural areas have steadily shrunk (Manta & Rajbanshi, 2015). Agriculture is mostly confined now in the outskirts of the city, especially in areas surrounding the Deepar beel, and North Guwahati. Since most of the areas are low lands, and agriculture is largely rainfed, the cropping system can be described as lowland rainfed floodplain (RFFP) agricultural regime.