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This paper describes the process of urbanization and land use change in the urban ecosystems of the National Capital Region (NCR) of Delhi, India. Two types of land use change are considered--from natural to urban and from agricultural to urban. Both types are explained in terms of economic variables known to be drivers of change. A panel data method was used, and economic variables were combined with GIS-based information on land use change during 1986-2004 for 11 administrative units of the NCR. The results suggest that investment in the construction sector plays a major role in converting the land from natural to urban areas, while differences in land productivity seems to be the major driver for change from agricultural to urban uses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Delhi has a population of 16.75 million and is increasing at a rapid rate. This increase in population has enhanced the need for public transport. In Delhi, this need for public transport is served mainly by buses, auto rickshaws, a rapid transit system, taxis and suburban railways. Delhi has one of the highest road densities in India. Buses are the most popular means of transport catering to about 60% of the total demand. In order to meet the transport demand in Delhi, the State and the Union government started the construction of a mass rapid transit system, including the Delhi Metro. By the application of various data and public response, the paper accentuates the qualitative discussion on impacts of mass rapid transit system (MRTS) corridor on land use and social aspects of lives of residents and road users. It also proposes certain mitigating measures for that meticulous condition. The analysis and survey outcome explain about the exceeded level of noise level as compared to CPCB standards. The share of public transport in total noise pollution is smaller than private but still exceeds the standards. Such problem demands the design of noise barrier along the corridor to curb the noise pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fog affects human life in a number of ways by reducing the visibility, hence affecting critical infrastructure, transportation, tourism or by the formation of frost, thus harming the standing crops. Smog is becoming a regular phenomenon in urban areas which is highly toxic to humans. Delhi was chosen as the area of study as it encounters all these hazards of fog stated apart from other political and economic reasons. The complex relationship behind the parameters and processes behind the formation of fog makes it extremely difficult to model and forecast it accurately. It is attempted to forecast the fog and understand its dynamics through a statistical downscaling technique of artificial neural network which is deemed accurate for short-term forecasting and usually outperform time-series models. The backpropagation neural network, which is a gradient descent algorithm where the network weights are moved along the negative of the gradient of the performance function, has been used for our analysis. Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) supported National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data had been used for carrying out the simulations. The model was found to have high accuracy but lacking in skill. An attempt has been made to present the data in a binary form by determining a threshold by the contingency table approach followed by its critical analysis. It is found that the calculation of an optimum threshold was also difficult to fix as the parameters of fog formation on which the model has been has been trained had shown some changes in their trend over a period of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid growth in consumption of bottled water across the globe has drawn attention of policy makers and academicians alike. However, its consumption practices have been examined primarily in the context of industrialized countries. Drawing on studies of Science, Technology and Society, Public Understanding of Science, and institutions, this article explores the nuances of the consumption conundrum of bottled water in India. This mixed method study relies on data collected through surveys and ethnography of consumption practices at selected sites in Delhi. We find reasons for bottled water consumption to vary with the site of consumption. Although the notions of “purity” and “scarcity” drive consumption behavior, these attributes are far from being objective. Rather, they are shaped by a complex mix of sociocultural factors, public understanding of science, and trust on various institutional mechanisms of water provisioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]