Impact of Najafgarh Drain on Local People and Environment A Case Study using Geoinformatics Techniques

ABSTRACT

In this present era Urbanization is considered as the base of development. Every country is in a rat race in attaining urbanization at the stake of environment. In this rat race somewhere, we are unable to maintain a balance between environment and economic growth. A similar situation is seen around the Najafgarh area of New Delhi which is growing haphazardly polluting the Najafgarh drain endlessly; moreover, this polluted water is directly or indirectly being used by the local people as well as the people living nearby as the local farmers cultivate crops using the polluted water from the drain which is consumed by these people. Thus, the present study is initiated with the objectives of identifying the range of area where the agricultural products are being supplied and to identify the houses falling in the most vulnerable zone; moreover, emphasis is also given to list down the kind of problems the local people are facing. Three wards of South west Delhi falling along the Najafgarh drain was taken for this study. The range to which the agricultural products are supplied is prepared in GIS software by linking the spatial and non-spatial data. The houses falling in the vulnerable zone is demarcated by creating a buffer along the drain in GIS platform, the houses falling within the buffer zone are considered to be the most vulnerable to the ill effect of the drain, the health status of the people living in these households were analyzed with the help of socio-economic survey. All these data are interlinked in GIS platform to get an efficient database which can prove to be helpful for future studies.

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