Journal of Landscape Architecture

ISSN: 1862-6033 (Print) 2164-604X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjla20

Yamuna River Project: New Delhi Urban Ecology

Iñaki Alday, Pankaj Vir Gupta ISBN 978 1 945150 67 8, New York & Barcelona,
ACTAR Publishers, 2018, 392 pp., 826 colour illustrations maps and graphics,
€ 45 (cloth)

Ashim Manna

To cite this article: Ashim Manna (2019) Yamuna River Project: New Delhi Urban Ecology, Journal
of Landscape Architecture, 14:2, 87-89, DOI: 10.1080/18626033.2019.1673597

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/18626033.2019.1673597

Published online: 21 Oct 2019.

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 B OO K R ev i ewS

Worldwide, contemporary urbanization high-

lights a clear departure from cities’ intimate ties
to the very landscapes that gave rise to them.
Centuries of dependence, appreciation and nego-
tiations have made way for control, dominance
and exploitation. The book Yamuna River Project:
New Delhi Urban Ecology focuses on the plight of
Indian rivers, where urbanization and moderni-
zation have erased ‘lifelines’ from citizens’ memo-
ries. Where the area around the Yamuna River
was once abundant with vast floodplains, impe-
rial palaces, lush gardens and public access to
the water, today the river quietly disappears as it
both land for biobased production (of forests, of Iñaki Alday, Pankaj Vir Gupta enters Delhi, only to reappear laden with sewage,
agricultural produce) and for leisure and recrea- Yamuna River Project: adding extensively to the downstream water pol-
tion. The international dimension was addressed New Delhi Urban Ecology lution. In the contemporary context, the Yamuna
with papers tackling tendencies in parts of the ISBN 978 1 945150 67 8 and Ganga Rivers, the two essential lifelines of
globe where the conventional concept of the park New York & Barcelona, the vast Gangetic floodplains, are extensively con-
is under further scrutiny. Eva Schwab of Graz ACTAR Publishers, 2018 trolled, manipulated and engineered by the cities
University of Technology presented the case of 392 pp., 826 colour illustrations they pass through. The various national and state
Medellín in Colombia, where the transfer of open maps and graphics programmes, policies and capital investments to
urban space strategies from Barcelona spurred € 45 (cloth) clean them have so far resulted in few changes
a widely mediatized urban transformation that towards the improvement of their appalling
became known as the ‘miracle of Medellín’, but Review by Ashim Manna, KU Leuven environmental conditions.
where inequality remains high and where infor-
mal yet vital open urban space practices were The book Yamuna River Project: New Delhi Urban
repressed in favour of usages imported with the Ecology by Iñaki Alday and Pankaj Vir Gupta
European models. Naama Meishar of Technion (based at Tulane University and the University
Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, explained of Virginia respectively) documents the Yamuna
how Jaffa Slope Park in Tel Aviv contributed to River Project1 (YRP) that the two authors co-
the expulsion of the poor Arab neighbours for direct, and arrives at a critical moment for Delhi.
the sake of environmental benefits and asked for Building upon the emerging interests in urban
a reconceptualization of the discipline’s ethical resilience, the volume marks the end of five years
concerns in the context of ‘green gentrification’. of interdisciplinary investigation of an urgent
environmental rejuvenation of the Yamuna
During the conference, park design discussions River and opportunities for restoring the city’s
shook off the apolitical attitude often encoun- forgotten associations with its landscape. The
tered in professional and academic debates today. volume advances through the methodology of
Critical moments, interests, convictions, actions, applied research, combining landscape urbanism
transfers, policies in park design, and urban open and interpretative mapping with an approach
space strategies came to light, all of which offered synonymous to the scholarly works of Anuradha
rich grounds for professionals and academics to Mathur and Dilip Da Cunha. Their scholarly
adopt nuanced political positions and to take works on Bangalore’s water bodies2 and Mumbai’s
them further onto the stages where decisions are estuaries3 reveal the contestations and opportuni-
made. Beyond professional service provision and ties inherent to the city’s characteristic landscape
academic credit collection there is a great poten- and its urbanization. Yamuna River Project con-
tial for political action in park design and related tinues this scholarship towards regenerating the
research that matters to society. city of Delhi, which is overwhelmed by enormous
amounts of solid waste, sewage and air pollution.

NOTES The book amalgamates the existent and often

1 x–Larch 2018, Park Politics International Conference, ‘Theme’, missing fragments of information on Delhi’s
http://x-larch.at/2018/theme/, accessed 25 July 2018. various urban interventions in the form of

Journal of Landscape Architecture / 2- 2019 87

citywide infrastructure since the tenth century. Delhi’s sub-drains, or Nullahs become a pastoral the general strategies, provide deeper insights
It combines the results of extensive fieldwork landscape. Existing alongside density of the city and explore ways to incrementally implement a
investigations in order to present a compre- they are hidden from view, offering respite and larger vision of the city . . . and identify specific
hensive cartographic description of Delhi, well the potential for a new system of green public sites that represent typical situations and deal
organized in four chapters: ‘Delhi’s Urban His- infrastructures which connect the city’ (p. 147). with the full complexity of Delhi’s urban condi-
tory’, ‘Delhi Urban Layers’, ‘Delhi and Its Water tion’ (p. 162).
Bodies’, and ‘A Vision for Delhi’. Combining The concluding chapter, ‘A Vision for Delhi’,
references from folklore, historical maps, aerial promises significant optimism; combining the The Yamuna River Project focuses on interpreting
images and various urban master plans, the dynamic process chronicled in previous chapters, the disturbed, complex and constructed ‘nature’
opening two chapters carefully construct the it re-engages the river for the ecological and of a single city, but the volume does not specify
city’s urban growth, starting from its mediaeval economic benefits, appealing for a sustainable a theoretical perspective, advocating the spirit of
tenth-century citadels up to the present complex management regime in the city. Anchored by ecologists such as Ian McHarg and Anne Whiston
urban structure. They further deconstruct the the spine of the Yamuna River, the ‘vision’ that Spirn. The authors emphasize, however, that cit-
spatial relationships between the city and its the volume proposes is ‘tactically animated’ by ies cannot be excluded from the natural systems4
landscape by elucidating the various layers of nine ecologically robust design scenarios that upon which their survival and stability depend.5
socio-economics, ecologies, mobility and govern- combine themes of ecological restoration, hous- Presented with profound analytical and graphical
ance, thus providing a precise analysis of the ing and infrastructure demands, and new public novelty, each of the proposed scenarios visual-
contributions of the different infrastructures to functions. These themes appropriate the existing izes the city-level public assets enhancing biodi-
the degenerating environmental condition of contexts to achieve river rejuvenation_a concept versity and advancing the learnings of landscape
the city. The series of interpretative maps offer non-existent in urban environments_and to urbanism in redefining the city. These scenarios
a simultaneous and scalar reading of the spatial, build the inherent resilience of the city versus re-engage the city with its landscape, reintroduc-
social, infrastructural and ecological networks, crisis management. The scenarios ‘Najafgarh ing the abilities of the landscape to restore the
and emphasize the city’s landscape provisions Drain as the Delhi’s East-West Spine’, ‘Sub- city’s natural ecology and providing the much-
for the exclusions of its contemporary urbanity. Drains as Linear Parks’ and ‘The Yamuna needed programme for fostering active coopera-
Through the scholarly cartographic work, the Floodplain Recovery’ provide the essential tion and public action.
book underlines its most important analyti- ecological functions at the city scale. Perform-
cal contribution of interpreting the conflicts ing as ‘regional infrastructure’, they integrate The hybrid form of the book as a monograph,
of Delhi’s various infrastructures. It not only bioremediation, daylighting of drains, decentral- technical report, cartographic atlas and mani-
reintroduces the forgotten landscape of the ized water management and recharge, linear festo is woven together by its methodology.
city_its streams, water bodies, the river and its public parks, and floodplain recovery to improve The book captures the dynamic and participatory
encroached floodplains_but also documents the overall water quality. The ‘Decentralized works of the Yamuna River Project, outlined with
the vast ‘existing’ and often ‘missing’ public Infrastructures’ and ‘Social Housing’ scenarios captivating maps, illustrative plans, perspectives
infrastructure (p. 42–60), systematically expos- respond to the two overwhelming crises faced by and photographs. Each chapter is equipped with
ing invisible topologies of spatial and hydraulic the city: the infrastructural access and migration a short introduction, with a greater emphasis on
segregation among the citizens of Delhi. As the inflows into the city. Surgically inserting solid- the various spatial scales, patterns and patches
authors explain: ‘In refusing to create a vision for waste and waste-water infrastructure, these of ecology6 present in Delhi’s urban landscape.
this critical relationship between land and water, scenarios provide flexible and resilient systems Yamuna River Project: New Delhi Urban Ecology
between habitation and ecology, New Delhi is at lower capital costs within the largely ‘informal prescribes an ambitious ‘ecological design-led’
in a very real emerging crisis_a rapid transition housing colonies’ once excluded from formalized agenda by analyzing Delhi’s complex multi-
from a city without clean water for all its citizens planning processes. Acknowledging the housing stakeholder context; it offers multidisciplinary
to a city without clean water at all’ (p. 121). deficit, the scenario on social housing intro- action by integrating urban planning, infra-
duces hybrid housing programmes along the structure hydraulics, socio-economics, landscape,
In the third chapter, about Delhi’s water, the bridges and multimodal interchanges along the ecology and urban design. Providing an innova-
very act of mapping demonstrates the oppor- river. The scenarios named ‘The Yamuna River tive methodology for analyzing complexities
tunities of breaking down the processes, scales Commons’, ‘Hybrid Infrastructure’, ‘Neighbour- of regional territories, both the project and the
and spatial relations of the city’s drainage hood Public Amenities’ and ‘Heritage Revitalisa- book contribute to the new wave of resilience
system with the Yamuna River. Functioning tion’ introduce the much-needed community and adaptation thinking within contemporary
simultaneously as ‘linear’ spines and ‘capillary’ programmes at the smallest scales in the form (landscape) urbanism. The project proposes a
networks, these drains and sub-drains establish of educational and spiritual services, markets, framework for public sector-led regeneration
the structural ‘armatures’ to gradually build up pedestrian bridges, multimodal stations, parks that stresses the social and economic potential of
the various landscape-led remediation strategies, and community and women’s-only facilities. urban ecology, based on the idea of design being
anchored by the spine of the Yamuna River: ‘If According to the authors, the scenarios offer participatory. Unravelling the complexities of
you look beyond the waste and ignore the smells, ‘typological proposals that test the validity of one of the most polluted rivers, the volume’s

88 Journal of Landscape Architecture / 2-2019

 critical perspective and manifesto-like format the performative landscape through built and
combine interrogation, activism and collabo- unbuilt elements, reinserting the river back into
ration. It argues for a strong vision of urban the city’s life, comprehensively contributing to
landscape that is distinct, transformative and a possible future through a multidisciplinary
urgent, yet rooted in Delhi. Reintroducing the approach combining infrastructure, hydraulics,
Yamuna River (and various water bodies) as an governance and public investments. The massive
integral part of the built environment, the vol- scholarship on which the volume is based defies
ume enriches and re-renders the utilitarian and the singular (often degenerated) representation
aesthetic purposes of the river, where riverine of Delhi through its cartographic simplicity,
urbanism once peaked within Delhi,7 where allowing the book to negotiate well, both as an
‘for centuries, the river and its floodplain have ‘atlas’ and ‘chronicler’ of the city. The publication
served a central fixture in the daily life of Delhi’s extends beyond its perceived audience of urban-
inhabitants_perhaps one day the Yamuna will ists by stimulating interdisciplinary debate. It
be returned to its proper role’ (p. 236). The only should be on the desks of not only students and
possible shortcoming is the absence of a detailed educators, but also politicians and city adminis-
study of the Yamuna basin and the impact of trators who are seeking a comprehensive meth-
climate change on it. The brief description of the odology with which to tackle the various urban
geographical, geological, and climatic origins challenges our cities are facing.
of the Yamuna River and its basin leaves room
for further explorations of the living entity that
reemerges to sustain the populated floodplains NOTES

further downstream of Delhi. Here, along with 1 See: www.yamunariverproject.org.

the Ganges River, the orchestrated human fluxes 2 Anuradha Mathur and Dilip Da Cunha, Deccan Traverses:
result in one of the densest riverine urban areas, The Making of Bangalore’s Terrain (New Delhi: Rupa & Co., 2006).
an aspect scientifically captured by Anthony 3 Anuradha Mathur and Dilip Da Cunha,
Acciavatti8 in his research of the cities and flood- SOAK: Mumbai in an Estuary (New Delhi: Rupa & Co., 2009).
plains of the Ganges River. 4 Ian L. McHarg and Lewis Mumford, Design with Nature
(New York: American Museum of Natural History, 1969).
Among the surge of discussions (and political 5 Anne Whiston Spirn, The Granite Garden: Urban Nature
actions) about the environmental rejuvenation and Human Design (New York: Basic Books, 1984).
of Indian rivers, the Yamuna River Project book 6 Wenche Dramstad, James D. Olson and Richard T. T. Forman,
presents a critical discourse within a larger Landscape Ecology Principles in Landscape Architecture and
paradigm of reimagining cities. It is a hybrid Land-use Planning (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1996).
of empirical studies and experimentations and 7 Jyoti Pandey Sharma, ‘Revisiting the Darya (River) Urbanism
pushes the boundaries of design by research, in the Delhi Triangle’, in: Thaïsa Way (ed.), River Cities, City
Rivers (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library
at the same time introducing innovation in and Collection, 2018), 99–128.
methodological approaches and expansion of
8 Anthony Acciavatti and Rahul Mehrotra,
knowledge for the future of cities. The book Ganges Water Machine: Designing New India's Ancient River
fascinatingly makes extensive use of historical (New York: Applied Research Design Publishing, 2015).
and contemporary descriptive images and pho- 9 ‘Yamuna River Project: New Delhi Urban Ecology Selected
tographs, interpretive maps and other visualiza- by DAM as One of the Top 10 Architectural Books of 2018’,
tions of projective regeneration. The scientific http://yamunariverproject.org/103018-yrp-book-wins-
nature of translating such enormous urban dam-prize.html, accessed 13 October 2019.
complexities has led to Yamuna River Project: New
Delhi Urban Ecology being honoured as one of the
best urban studies books of 2018 by the pres-
tigious Frankfurt Book Fair and the Deutsches
Architekturmuseum (DAM).9 It concludes with
a large-scale vision, not only offering design-led
strategies, but also a renegotiated and reimag-
ined relationship of the city with its main river.
These strategies, linked to designing of architec-
ture, urban plans and infrastructure, emphasize

Journal of Landscape Architecture / 2- 2019 89