Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Vishal Mehta, Im an environmental scientist with the Stockholm Environment Institute.

Im a native of Bangalore, and today Ill be sharing some aspects of current urban sustainability work that is Bangalore-centric, but Ill leading up to it from a broader perspective of Decision Support for urban planning.

Ill start by describing the need for decision support, and present some examples of existing tools out there. From there Ill describe some of the key knowledge gaps that prevent achieving the full potential of what DST has to offer.

Urban and regional planners and decision makers have to make decisions across multiple sectors, in many dimensions, and through a multitude of actors and agencies. At the same time

There are large uncertainties regarding the possible growth of a city some of which are critical uncertainties, those uncertainties that also have a big impact.

Add to this the fact that India is rapidly urbanizing; take Bangalore as an example; it grew by about 1 million per people upto 2001; but in the last decade by almost 4 million.

So in this context how do we go about supporting planning and decision making? Scenario-based Decision Support tools are one approach these are able to assess the system across all plausible conditions, and can be used to assess the robustness of decisions. The creation of these scenarios, which are plausible visions of the future, needs to be a participatory process- there are formal approaches to doing this.

Now Im going to share some examples of Decision Support Tools. The first is from the world of air pollution. This interesting example is from Denmark, where researchers built a custom-made Decision Support System to support local authorities in air quality management of large Danish cities. It was motivated by another study that showed that the mortality rate from traffic related air pollution could be as high as that from traffic accidents. As you can imagine, this is a very relevant study for Indian cities. They combined air quality monitoring with population modeling and air pollution modeling to determine an exposure assessment at street and neighborhood scale.

For example, this graphic shows the Benzene concentrations on the streets, as well as an exposure assessment. The modeling portion also allows for an assessment of abatement measures.

It is informative to take a look at the elements of this DSS developed in Denmark.

10

My next example is from the world of GHG emissions, in particular with an online Decision Support System built by SEI called EUREAPA. I am going to quickly go through a few slides in which I focus on India, what our CO2 current footprint is, where it comes from, and how I can build an alternate policy scenario online to assess what

11

You can build scenarios for the future online: in this case Im building one where coal powerplants are reduced by half and replaced by renewables. So for the purpose of this demonstration, Im asking this DSS to tell me, what might be the reduction in GHG emissions if I replace half of current coal-fired electricity production by renewables

12

This graphic shows how that particular scenario reduces our Carbon footprint by 100 ktons of CO2 eq. How does this relate to urban context? Well, most of Indias footprint comes from urban consumption and not only is our urban population growing, but consumption lifestyles are changing rapidly.

13

My third example is from the world of water supply, and the role of Integrated Water Resources tools. Some of the key features of urban water supply are listed in this slide in general, utility service is very poor

14

Now what does a comprehensive DST look like when adopting an Integrated Water Resources Management approach? As this slide shows, such a systems approach tackles several dimensions of water: including water availability driven by climate-driven hydrology, that is integrated with multisectoral demands for water that are met through infrastructure. Using scenarios, it moves away from utility-centric augmentation-only affects, and is able to comparatively assess plans and strategies for the future.

15

One such DSS is the Water Evaluation and Planning System (WEAP) developed by SEI over the last 20 years. It is a generalized software platform that lets you build specific models you can buil a model for a house, up to a riverbasin. Two key aspects of it are that it has in-built capacity to integrate climate-driven simulation of the water balance, to allocation of water demands; and ii, any number of scenarios can be created in it.

16

Ill take you through some examples from small towns in East Africa where we examines how climate, demographic change and infrastructure imacted water utility performance. Several aspects are similar to urban situations in India: financial performance of the utility, low coverage of the population, high growth, high electricity costs and old, leaking infrastructure.

17

In only Masaka, were we able to link the hydrology of the water source (the wetland) to the extraction and supply of water by the utility.

18

 What we found was that water supply was mainly infrastructure limited more than by climate change or population growth. What this graph shows is that water availability as determined by hydrologic simulation of the wetland, is above demand until 2050; but the waterworks capacity is way below availability. Water supply is currently infrastructure limited in all three towns
In Kisii and Bukoba, doubling the waterworks capacity could meet 100% demand coverage until ~2025; after which demand and supply side interventions would be needed.

Annual electricity consumption would rise to 5 million KWhr at an estimated cost of 577 Mill Tsh in Bukoba by 2025.
In Masaka, simulated,runoff under CCSM projections increases - the wetland is able to produce enough runoff to double waterworks capacity. However, the future demand is met at the cost of almost no downstream flows. Under reduced rainfall, water availability lags demand almost every summer. Hydrologic integration is necessary to evaluate the water availability and impacts side of the water supply problem. Collection of the hydroclimatic data needed in order to do the same, should be a priority for utilities and agencies in the LV region. 19

So far Ive described -with examples- how various Decision Support Tools can be very useful in urban and regional planning. Now there are many barriers to effective and comprehensive decision making: from knowledge gaps to institutional inertia, technical, financial, lack of public participation. I will focus on knowledge gaps in the urban water sector, based on some work we are doing that is Bangalore focused.

20

First, the natural system is rarely understood well. In this case the hydrology or the water balance, which determines the biophysical limits to water availability.

21

I will focus on knowledge gaps in the urban water sector, based on some work we are doing that is Bangalore focused.

22

I will focus on knowledge gaps in the urban water sector, based on some work we are doing that is Bangalore focused.

23

What can we do when so much of the puzzle is missing. Let me give you an example from Mulbagal, supported by Arghyam and IISc. As part of Arghyams IUWM, some 400 wells were sampled by Dr. Sekhars team, which led to a very good understanding of the groundwater regime. However at the time, no similar sampling of the surface water balance was performed. Dr. Sekhar and I anyway used our expereince from other similar sites to build an integrated surface water and groundwater model in WEAP.

24

Given the current state of ICT, there is plenty of opportunity for innovation. For example, the public can become active participants in filling in knowledge gaps. Take for example the impressive Open Street Maps project: in which street level mapping for the entire world has been generated that is freely accessible and usable by volunteers around the world.

25

Im going to end with a few slides on what we are currently doing on urban sustainability in Bangalore

26

27

28

29

30

31

Spatial variability

32

Here is a screenshot of the WEAP GUI for a model for Mulbagal that we created with Arghyam and Dr. Sekhar. Building the model consists of dragging and dropping objects onto the screen objects like catchments to simulated the hydrology, groundwater for recharge and extraction, and demand nodes for simulating various sectoral demands. Very complex models have been built for example for the mountains in Sierra Nevada, I huilt a model which has 325 catchments and 25 reservoirs, 33 hydropowerplants plus municipal supply, but Im going to show you only a few urban network examples, which tend to be simpler.

33

About financial implications of timing actions. Could they use conservation and reuse to delay treatment plant increaseswas it cost effective. Was it financial beneficial to decrease demand to forestall increase in supply.

34

Middle sized American utility dealing with resource allocation, issues between preferred SW and supplemental GW supply. Use the tool to explore effective strategies to meet that demand, consumer preferences, build new reservoir, operate the reservoir. Driven by environmental (fish flow) instream flow requirement. Develop new supplies (well fields, 3 rd res, wholesale contractswho ended up developing their own new supplies) DEMANDS Serves more than 950,000 people Average daily demand is 103 MG Peak daily demand in summer can be 200 MG Approximately 38 BG are delivered annually 60% is delivered within city limits 40% is delivered to other cities and special districts
SUPPLIES Bull Run System supplies most of water used in Portland Groundwater from the Columbia South Shore Well Field supplies up to 12 BG/y Additional smaller sources supply less than 5 BG/y Bull Run reservoirs have 10 BG of active storage MANAGEMENT SCENARIO Will proposed infrastructure enhancements provide enough supply to meet increasing demands and minimum required flows in the lower Bull Run? PLANNING AND MODELING CHALLENGES Groundwater Relatively small storage volume in Bull Run system requires groundwater pumping during summer months Groundwater is less desirable Groundwater system pumping capacity is limited to 90 MG Minimum flow requirements on Bull Run

35