Disasters put focus on cities’ ‘carrying capacity’. It’s a textbook concept, planners don’t use it

Last month, SC decided to form expert panel to consider using ‘carrying capacity’ in urban planning in Himalayan states. But experts are divided on how practical this would be.

New Delhi September 3, dmanewsdesk : The Supreme Court’s decision last month to constitute a panel of experts to assess the “carrying capacity” of cities in Himalayan states ravaged by landslides, floods and subsidence has revived the discussion on this urban planning tool that has, until now, largely remained confined to textbooks and policy documents. The concept has rarely been used in planning our cities despite fast-paced urbanisation, admit urban planners.

The apex court in its order on 21 August said that it is a “very important issue” while hearing a public interest litigation seeking carrying capacity assessment of ecologically fragile Himalayan regions for the formulation of master plans. 

The court’s observations came close on the heels of the devastation in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand due torrential rains this monsoon season. In Himachal Pradesh, more than 200 people have died and the estimated loss in terms of property and infrastructure amounts to over Rs 10,000 crore.  

Significantly, these states have faced flash floods, landslides, and acute water shortages in the past, especially in popular tourist destinations. For instance, in 2018 and 2022, destinations such as Shimla faced acute water shortages for days. 

“In most of the statutory towns, planning processes under which master plans are prepared don’t use the concept of carrying capacity. This is not a very operational concept. It’s more conceptual and hasn’t turned into a technique to be used as such,” Vidhyadhar Phatak, a Mumbai-based urban planner and former dean of planning at the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology in Ahmedabad, told ThePrint. 

In 2021, NITI Aayog set up a committee, headed by P.S.N Rao, former director of Delhi’s School of Planning and Architecture, to work on the spatial planning framework for hilly regions and give recommendations. The panel will submit its report in two weeks, Rao said.

“It is important to assess the carrying capacity of hill towns, especially with high tourist inflow, as there is not much scope for further expansion in terms of availability of land. The carrying capacity has to be worked out based on the local factors in each city. We have looked at the key issues faced by hill states,” he said.

Meanwhile, the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA), the government think tank on urban issues under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, which is anchoring an Urban Hill City Forum, has decided to conduct an in-house study of hill states.

After the SC order, NIUA has decided to take a proactive role and initiated a dialogue with its partners to carry out an assessment of the planning instruments/prevailing norms/guidelines, stress on infrastructure due to tourism and collect baseline data, analyse the disaster related provisions in the master plans of hill cities in the Himalayan region etc,” Hitesh Vaidya, director NIUA, told ThePrint. 

He added that the idea is to collect baseline data and identify issues “which we plan to submit to the panel appointed by the court”.

What is carrying capacity?

According to the URDPFI guidelines, the carrying capacity of an area can be defined as the “maximum number of population that can be supported by the environment of that area through optimum utilisation of the available resources”. 

“The pattern and extent of resource usage serves to be the primary factor that affects the carrying capacity,” the guidelines add. “This indeed depends highly on: socio‐economic status of the people and use of technology”.

The guidelines say that density norms — the rules that mandate how many people can be accommodated in an area — should be based on carrying capacity analysis focussing on parameters such as “space per person, access to facilities, and available piped water per capita, mobility and safety factors”.

But urban planners are divided over whether this tool can effectively be used in future city planning.

“This is not a very operational concept; it is more conceptual and hasn’t turned into a technique to be used as such. Almost all master plans are prepared to accommodate projected growth in a city; it is more about managing growth than controlling it,” Phatak said.

The concept of carrying capacity, though important in vulnerable situations such as in case of hill stations, is multidimensional and dynamic, he added.

“To arrive at a figure of the carrying capacity of a city is difficult, as there are many sectors which have to be looked at such as housing, transport, water, air quality etc. All this will change from time to time.”

Planners say that carrying capacity can’t be quantified due to multiple factors, and these factors will keep changing with the use of new technology. For instance, although restricting the number of vehicles in an area or city due to air pollution could be done, with new technology and the use of clean fuel, this might not be a concern in the future.  

But R. Srinivas, former planner with the Town and Country Planning Organisation (TPCO), says it is indded possible to calculate carrying capacity. 

Set up in 1962 through the merger of the erstwhile Town Planning Organization (TPO) and the Central Regional and Urban Planning Organization (CRUPO), the TPCO comes under the Union housing ministry and assists in policymaking. 

“The URDPFI guidelines clearly state how it can be calculated. In fragile ecosystems, it is the need of the hour to do carrying capacity assessment and take immediate measures to stop environmental degradation,” Srinivas said.

The concept of carrying capacity, however, is an integral part of urban planning in European cities, Saswat Bandyopadhyay, a professor of urban planning at CEPT University, Ahmedabad, told ThePrint. Bandyopadhyay said that one of the first carrying capacity assessments in the country was done for Delhi in connection with air pollution in the late 1990s or early 2000s.

“In Germany, Netherlands and other European countries, carrying capacity is used in planning for cities’ development. It is mostly used in environmental planning to assess the population density based on availability of land, water etc,” he said. 

There are two main components to this planning tool, he explained: assimilative and supportive capacities. 

“Assimilative capacity is the capacity of the natural environment to absorb urban pollution and waste for sustenance of environmental quality, while the other is to sustain population and economic growth,” added Bandyopadhyay.

Although carrying capacity has been taught in planning schools, it has rarely been used by urban planners while planning for cities’ development.

“It is due to the lack of experienced urban planners in the states. Uttarakhand has just one urban planner. There is an acute shortage of urban planners,” said Keshav Varma, chairman of the central government-appointed high-level committee on urban development.

This panel was announced last year to suggest urban planning reforms. According to Varma, while carrying capacity should be used in preparing the plans for all cities, it is a must for Himalayan cities.

According to Jaya Dhindaw, program director of integrated urban development, planning and resilience at the Delhi-based think-tank WRI India, a multi-dimensional assessment of the infrastructure and resources of cities can help in better planning.

“Cities can also prioritise the sector(s) to focus on depending on immediate concerns. For instance, in urban areas that are around sensitive ecological assets, like hill cities, local authorities can look at carrying capacities prioritising ecological concerns,” she said.

Dhindaw cited Portland, USA, as an example of a city that has determined its urban growth boundary based on carrying capacity. “Portland authorities have defined what kind of population growth the area can support. There are financial incentives for development in certain areas. Though they have not reached a situation where their infrastructure is strained due to increase in population load, authorities have still prepared a detailed plan.”

‘Unsustainable’ growth in hills

The development of road networks in hill states has resulted in high tourist inflow and urban migration in some cities. In turn, this increase in tourism has led to unregulated development and traffic congestion and a rise in the number hotels and supporting infrastructure — thereby burdening the existing infrastructure, according to experts.

“The ecosystem is under tremendous stress. The rivers have been robbed of natural ecology. There is large-scale construction, mostly unregulated, being carried out in large parts. The development in most hill cities is unsustainable. There is an urgent need to arrest the problem. It can be done by doing a detailed study of the next two years in these areas and preparing a detailed plan,” said Varma.

In reference to hill cities with high tourist footfall, and heritage or religious circuits, the URDPFI guidelines say: “It is crucial to include the eco‐sensitive area mapping, evaluation of carrying capacity and provision of eco‐tourism in planning for such towns”.

Experts say that there’s a need not only to restrict the number of vehicles and development in hill cities after doing a proper assessment, but to also decongest these cities and develop other tourist destinations in a planned way. This, they say, will help take the load off the present popular tourist destinations.

“There are a few popular tourist destinations which see maximum rush during peak seasons. It is important to restrict the number of tourist vehicles, pedestrianise large parts of the area etc,” Varma said. 

But the state governments should also make efforts to develop other cities as tourist destinations, he added. 

“In these areas, the norms should be worked out after a detailed carrying capacity assessment.”

Source: The Print