A Tale of Two Riparian Zones

Flotilla at Amsterdam

'Riparian zone' is the green ribbon of life alongside a stream/river/waterbody. This ribbon is a mixture of vegetation types, which varies greatly from place to place. The riparian zone is critical to the health of every stream and its surroundings.

The images illustrate the riparian zones at Amsterdam and Ahmedabad. Needless to even judge, which city has given the due importance to conservation and maintenance of their respective riparian zones. Therefore, while Amsterdam can serve as a model for conservation and maintenance of riparian zones inside city limits, the Sabarmati riverfront at Ahmedabad certainly cannot be one such model. 

Riparian zone at Ahmedabad

No Environment Impact Assessment of the project was conducted nor was any credible public consultation process held, while planning the Sabarmati river front at Ahmedabad. The Sabarmati channel, for effecting this showpiece development, had to be uniformly narrowed to 275 metres during the riverfront development project from its natural width of about 350 metres. In this attempt of “pinching the river”, the original character of the river has changed completely from a seasonally flowing river to an impounded tank. 

The Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project has converted a 10.4 KM stretch of Sabarmati River within Ahmedabad city limits into an urban space by reclaiming nearly 200 ha of land and displacing nearly 10,000 people. Over 3,000 people have been moved to a marshland in the outskirts of the city with negligible compensation, little and infrequent access to drinking water and minimal sanitation facilities. Concrete embankment walls of height 4 to 6 meters have been created for this stretch of 10.4 KM on both banks with walkways. The mainstay of the project was the sale of riverfront property. 21 % of the reclaimed land which was developed by concretising the river bank has been sold to private developers for commercial purpose.

Even more sadly, the water that is impounded in this Sabarmati Riverfront stretch is not Sabarmati river water, but Narmada river Water. Water from Narmada canal is released in Sabarmati upstream of the riverfront project; water on which the city of Ahmedabad has no right. This water from Narmada was justified and originally meant for the drought prone areas of Kutch, Saurashtra and North Gujarat.Sadly, water meant for addressing drought were diverted for a cosmetic facelift of the Ahmedabad city. Thus the water we see in Sabarmati in Ahmedabad is water deprived from the drought prone areas.

The Sabarmati Riverfront Project has also not resulted in cleaning of the Sabarmati river. Instead the pollution from untreated sewage and industrial effluent gets diverted near the Vasna Barrage downstream of riverfront project stretch. Even after the riverfront development project, water quality of the Sabarmati river downstream of the Vasna Barrage is extremely poor. The 10.4 KM long stretch is like a canal, upstream of it is a dry river in most days and downstream is one of the most polluted stretch.

The All-Concrete Sabarmati River Front

The National Institute of Hydrology and the IIT Roorkee has re-evaluated the project design. Their report say that the original calculations did not take into account any simultaneous rainfall over the entire catchment area. The report also states that riverfront development is not a flood control scheme, and therefore the municipal corporation needs to work out other measures to meet the impending challenge of floods.

This is the famed Gujarat model of Urbanization!

Years back, while working on an urban rejuvenation plan for the former industrial township of Howrah, some of the famed international urban rejuvenation experts, with whom I had the great fortune of working with, had categorically advised against adopting a "Sabarmati Riverfront" style of development for the Hooghly.

Disclaimer / Caveat: Whatever I have stated is publicly available information and does not represent the view of the firm I work for.

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