Urban Environmental Management in Hyderabad

Abstract

In the backdrop of rapid urbanisation and population growth which is a function of multitude parameters, a multi-criteria analysis was performed using AHP and GIS for the comprehensive evaluation of environmental quality of different municipal wards of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC). Various parameters, such as air, water, noise, solid waste, urban green space, urban water bodies and sprawl which reflect the health of different environmental systems were taken into consideration. Pair-wise comparison of these parameters was done by ranking the priorities and assigning the weights for integrated analysis at different hierarchies, which in turn resulted in map themes representing varying environmental quality levels of different municipal wards within GHMC. The analysis rates the wards into different categories indicating the overall environmental quality as ‘very good’, ‘good’, moderately good’, ‘poor’ and ‘bad’. Majority of the wards, especially in the eastern and central portion of GHMC are found with poor quality of environment, whereas few wards located in the western fringe areas are found with good quality environment due to low density of population, industries and also the presence of green areas.