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Urban ecology
Delhi is where the argument about city nature is being had in public. Its master plan to 2047 treats the Yamuna, the Ridge and the city's heritage as infrastructure to be maintained, and a new book on the capital's wild places reads the same city from the other end, through the imported tree that took the Ridge and the river that was turned into a drain.
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2018: why Prosopis juliflora is in the news
What a green-blue network means
- A green-blue network plans a city's rivers, drains, wetlands, forests and parks as one connected system rather than as separate parcels of land.
- The Master Plan for Delhi is the city's statutory land use plan, prepared by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA).
The ground Delhi stands on
- The Delhi Ridge is an extension of the Aravalli range, among the world's oldest fold mountains.
- The Najafgarh drain is the channelled course of the Sahibi river, which rises in the Aravalli hills of Rajasthan and joins the Yamuna in Delhi.
- A city this dry is mostly scrub country, so its native plants are xerophytic ones built to lose as little water as they can.
What the plan does with each
Yamuna
- Restore the floodplain
- Treat drains through constructed wetlands and bioremediation
Ridge
- Restore with native species
Heritage
- Cultural Resource Management Plans
- Adaptive reuse
- Transferable Development Rights
Ecology lessons from Wild Capital
Invasive species
- Vilayati kikar (Prosopis juliflora), introduced from the Americas
- Spreads fast and suppresses native plants
Seed dispersal
- Endozoochory: animals eat fruit and pass the seeds in their droppings
- Many native seeds germinate only after passing through an animal's gut, though soaking in water can work instead
Plant adaptations
- Thorns lack stomata and collect dew, a xerophytic adaptation
- Chasmophytes grow in cracks of rock and pavements
- Bio-crusts of lichens and mosses begin soil formation in primary succession
What has happened
12 Sep 2026
Neha Sinha's book Wild Capital: Discovering Nature in Delhi was reviewed, reading the capital's ecology through its invasive trees, its buried river and the plants that hold on to rock.
- Restoration at the Aravalli Biodiversity Park began by matching native plants to baking sun, desert winds or the shelter of rocks.
Frontline, 12 Sep 2026: How green was my Dilli (opens in a new tab)
1 Sep 2026
The Master Plan for Delhi 2047 was set out, treating the Yamuna, the Ridge and the city's heritage as infrastructure Delhi has to maintain, each with a programme of its own.