Urbanization Challenges in Emerging Economies: Energy and Water Infrastructure; Transportation Infrastructure; and Planning and Financing

The study was conducted 1. to examine the performance of aerobic bacteria in treating a pesticide industry effluent and to quantify the biodegradation in terms of bio-kinetic parameters at steady state and 2. to study the inhibition caused by the pesticide effluent on un-acclimated ethanol enriched aerobic culture. The performance of the treatment was monitored based on total organic carbon (TOC), total nitrogen (TN), and sulfate removal at different SRTs. Highest COD removal of 80% was observed for SRTs greater than 8-day. The steady state kinetic parameters k, K_s, Y, and k_d were 2.52 d⁻¹, 49.68 mg COD/L, 0.25 mg VSS/mg COD, and 0.46 d⁻¹, respectively. The pesticide industry effluent caused a competitive inhibition above a dose of 1.6% on un-acclimated culture. High treatment efficiency can be achieved in aerobic biological treatment when the biomass gets acclimatized to the pesticide industrial effluent.

A systematic collection and effective routing system of waste transportation gives a well-organized solid waste management. If the routes are planned effectively, the length of the collection routes can be minimized which leads to cost efficiency and time saving. This work focuses on the efficient design and development of a system of collection, storage, and disposal plan for urban areas. A GIS based routing model is proposed for a single ward of 2.15 km² in South Bengaluru. This model considers the distance, time, and cost reduction in collection and transportation paths for the solid waste management system. The proposed model takes into account the information collected on the waste generated, population density, types of roads and vehicle for transportation, and the existing method of collection and segregation system. Based on the data, efficient routing for the transport of waste along with the introduction of new collection points is proposed.

In the present scenario, developing countries are experiencing a rapid growth due to urbanization. Many of the watersheds of India are facing water quality issues caused by anthropogenic sources like high industrialization, population growth, and urbanization. Fluid flow and solute transport to the subsurface environment are the most detrimental activities in the urbanized area and it is one of the biggest challenge facing watershed managers. As it is very difficult to eliminate the source activities permanently, a thorough understanding of flow processes combined with transport mechanisms is required in order to minimize such water quality hazard. This study seeks an interaction of principal transport mechanisms like advection and dispersion and its effect on solute movement. To solve and analyze these problems, an analytical scheme is used which is based on a mathematical combination of the variational iteration method and the homotopy perturbation method. Sensitivity analysis is carried out with changing transport parameters like velocity and dispersion of the media and concentration profiles are studied using the analytical model. It has found that the potential of solute concentration is more with the high flow velocity and however conversely varies with respect to the dispersion of the porous medium.

Water is needed by the human being as basic requirement. In rural as well as urban areas, treated water is to be provided by the local municipal authorities. The large volume of water required in urban areas as compared to rural areas due to large population and development activities, which gives the fair idea for requirement of potable water for the masses within short duration. The water treatment includes various operations such as aeration, flash mixing, flocculation, sedimentation, filtration, and chlorination out of which sedimentation is for the removal of suspended, and colloidal solids. Mostly in rainy season, erosion of top soil contributes suspended solids in water body resulting in turbidity more than 1000 NTU and hence it is essential to remove the suspended particles from water else it may add color, turbidity, and odour to water. To overcome this problem an approach is made to treat large volume of water within short duration for urban region by the application of modified tube settlers in sedimentation tank. Existing conventional tube settlers are compared with the modified tube settler unit in this attempt for comparative evaluation. Natural suspension of a river (flocculated laminar flow) is allowed to pass through modified tube settlers unit, inclined at 60° angle and 1 m length. The raw water flowed through tubes and unit, depositing relatively coarse particles onto the inner bottom surface of the tube and slides down, resulting in the remaining upcoming suspension becoming fairly clear and less concentrated. The high rate sedimentation process has substantially reduced the cost of treatment due to non mechanical moving parts. The time required for the sedimentation is very much less compared to conventional one. In view of various previous studies, critical studies have been carried out to evaluate performance of the modified tube settlers. In addition to efficient performance of tube settler module, the design considerations of tube settler unit including flow through velocity has been elucidated. The observations during experimentation work given improved efficiency and decrease in turbidity with less detention time.

Urban flooding has caused immense damage to the society. Flooding in urban areas mostly occurs due to increased urbanization, low rate of infiltration, and poor infrastructure for stormwater drainage network. In the present study, PCSWMM model is used for modelling the stormwater drainage network for the southern part of Delhi, the capital city of India, which is developed by Computational Hydraulics International (CHI), Canada, and it is GIS compatible which makes this software more efficient. All the collected field survey details data of the stormwater drains were incorporated in ArcMap 10.2 and then imported in PCSWMM to develop a hydrology-hydraulic model for surface runoff. The simulated results of the model were further calibrated and validated with the flooding locations data obtained from the Delhi Traffic Police Department. The simulated results were closely matching with the observed data and thus, can to use for designing stormwater drainage network.

The hydraulic design of energy intensive aeration systems is quite essential in the context of rapid urbanization and population explosion. Nowadays, validated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models are used for analysing the flow fields in aeration tanks owing to several difficulties associated with experimental investigations. The main objective of the present study is to analyse the effect of grid resolution, k-ε turbulence models, and pressure velocity coupling schemes on turbulent flow fields in a baffled aeration tank stirred by six bladed Rushton turbine. The grid resolution and k-ε turbulence models found to have significant impact on flow fields while various pressure-velocity coupling schemes improved the numerical convergence without improving the accuracy of the solutions further. Thus fine grids associated with realizable k-ε turbulence model is effective in steady state CFD modelling of baffled aeration tanks.

In last few years, cities experienced the rapid urban development and population growth. The urban area is increasing and same is covering one or more catchment area of river basin. Storm water management is very important for urban development. The engineered drain and natural drains are designed based on calculated run-off for a particular return period considering storm water manual and international standards using present/past data related land use but the land use pattern changes with time due to rapid urbanization. Normally, urban hydrology is computed with rational method, curve number method, etc. Land use plays a vital role in calculation of run-off in urban catchment. Modification in land use has an impact on hydrology and climate change (variability). The major factor decided to effect the hydrological response in this paper is land use changes. Land use changes in last 10 years shows the increase in run-off in engineered drains/natural drain. Bhopal City is rapidly urbanizing in all directions. The whole city covers the 22 catchment area and same are contributing the run-off to adjoining rivers and main seven water bodies/lakes. The land use pattern is also changing year to year. Land use area has been calculated with satellite image (IRS LISS-III) of 2006 and 2016 and land cover dynamic index of urban area and built-up area are 10.61% and 11.95% from 2006 to 2016 for level-1 and level-2 classification respectively. Due to change in land use and climate change, the run-off is increasing and experiencing flood in most of part of the city and Bhopal City is experiencing rapid flood/flush flood in urban area. The effect of land use change on hydrological response may reduce and allow precipitation to become the dominant factor in causing changes in peak discharge and run-off. This paper is exclusively deal with effect of flush flood due to change in land use that conversion of pervious to impervious.

Waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE) is generated at a rapid pace, creating a large waste stream of obsolete electrical and electronic equipment (EEE). Complex nature of e-waste in terms of materials, design, and properties makes it difficult to reuse, recycle, and recover from the waste stream. A lot of valuable recyclables such as plastics, metals, PCBs, and glasses are present in e-waste and need to be sorted efficiently for improved recovery. In this paper, we report the thermal imaging technique for classification of different e-waste materials. The developed approach can be used for multi-material classification of recyclables from e-waste into broad categories such as metal, plastic, PCB, and glass. We performed several experimental studies to validate the developed approach and obtained a classification success rate in the range of 80-89% for e-waste. Further investigation needs to be evaluated for the practical feasibility of such method in developing countries.

Rapid urbanization, industrialization, and change of life style of people has increased the rate of solid waste generation by leaps and bounds in the developing countries. Municipal solid waste generation varies with place to place and the standard of living of the people residing in cities. Solid waste consists of organic matter, which undergoes degradation and produces foul smell, if not properly managed. Therefore management of the garbage had reached a very critical stage and now emphasis has been given to its collection, treatment, and final disposal. Generally in Indian cities, waste is collected and simply dumped outside the cities which are called as landfill sites. Any method of disposal other than composting will be uneconomical, required skilled person, and also pollute air, water, and soil. Large quantity of plant nutrients gets wasted in other methods of disposal. Composting is not a method of waste disposal but it is a method of recycling the waste. Municipal solid waste is one of the potential organic nutrient residues, which upon recycling leads to a valuable compost, which is vital for growth and development of plants. Sewage sludge is rich in micro-organisms, organic content, as well as nutrient elements. So in this study co-composting of municipal waste with sewage sludge has been taken up to conserve nutrients. In the present work studies were conducted on municipal solid waste, mixed with sewage sludge in different proportion, to check the technical viability of the integrated system of composting. Addition of sewage sludge to waste for composting not only increases decomposition rate and fertility value, it also solve the problem of sludge disposal from treatment plant. It will save the cost of sludge treatment. Municipal waste compost can be regarded as being valuable in soil management practices because of their organic matter content.

The paper presents a case study from Guwahati City, where the government had proposed installation of four water supply projects that are facing vehement public protest. The reason for opposition being mistrust and apprehension among public over the ignorance of public representation in governing body (Jal Board). We found that the public consultation was not carried out a priori, as for not being a mandatory clause of national water policy draft. In an attempt to address this, the study aspires to develop a framework that incorporates public consultation in water supply projects as a mandatory clause. To do so, the review of worldwide public consultation principles, public consultation in EIA, and factors influencing public consultation in infrastructure projects was carried out. Twelve factors were influencing the public participation in various infrastructure projects, lack of public involvement being the most critical. These influencing factors stand as the backbone of the framework suggesting mandatory public consultations at the planning stages of the projects. The framework defines duties and responsibilities of authorities, consultation timings, information sharing, awareness creation, and document scrutiny.

Recent research is focused towards the application of low cost biosorbents prepared from various plants for deflouridation. Present research is done on Pseudarthria viscida (moovila) and the adsorption data is analyzed for Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin, and Dubunin-Radushkevich isotherm models at varying initial adsorbate concentration (2-25 mg/L). It is found that the adsorption of fluoride onto Pseudarthria viscida biosorbent follows Langmuir isotherm with constant “a” and “b” obtained are 1.929 mg/gm and 0.9 l/mg at an adsorbent dose of 8 g/L and temperature 26±1 °C. The kinetic study also supports chemisorption with adsorption data fitting well with pseudo-second order kinetic model with estimated kinetic constant K₂ 0.315 g/mg min at equilibrium contact time of 90 minutes. The thermodynamic study indicated the spontaneous and endothermic nature (ΔH=15563.808 J/mol). Adsorbent characterization was done by the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) and SEM methods. The cost comparison indicates that the biosorbent developed from psuedarthria viscida is comparatively less.

The global increase in water demand, water shortage due to low rainfall, economic, and environmental issues, leads the researchers to show interest in wastewater recycling. This paper deals with the treatment of grey water, which is all wastewater generated in households, public, or commercial properties without fecal contamination. The grey water sample was collected from a residential society in Ahmedabad, and the natural coagulant used was freely available Mangifera indica (mango) seeds. The initial characteristics of the grey water were assessed based on the parameters pH, TS, TDS, turbidity, COD, and measured as 7.41, 955 mg/L, 670 mg/L, 231 NTU, and 662 mg/L respectively. Turbidity and COD variation were analyzed for different concentrations of coagulant dosage and by varying the settling time from 20 to 60 minutes, considering the removal of micro-flocs. The optimum dosage of coagulant (20 mg/L) removed 78% of turbidity and 77% of COD at 60 min of settling. It was also observed that adding organic coagulant beyond the optimum level contributes to the COD. The study concluded that the settling time does not have major effect in the removal efficiency of turbidity and COD from grey water using mango seed as natural coagulant.

The present study focusses on enhancement of the performance of a continuous bipolar mode electrocoagulation (CBME) system for removal of total organic carbon (TOC) and total phosphorous (TP) from a palm oil mill effluent (POME). The study was conducted in two major steps. First study focused on optimization of various process variables of a CBME system to maximize the removal of TOC and TP. Second step involved enhancement of the process by following three different methods: 1. changing the electrical conductivity of the POME; 2. arranging three CBME systems in series; 3. incorporating an aeration system in the CBME chamber. CBME technology, when applied in series, showed higher removals of TOC (88.31%) and TP (91.1%) compared to the other approaches. CBME system in series can be a feasible option for enhancement of the performance of the process.

Phytoremediation is a feasible and promising technique to treat mixed contamination in soils because of its good field-scale applicability. However, survival of the plants in highly contaminated areas is one of the most important limiting factors. The addition of organic matter to the soil buffers the negative impact of heavy metals and promotes biodegradation of organic contaminants thereby increasing the chances of survival of the plant species. In this study, an environmental impact assessment of the use of four different organic amendments namely biosolids, biochar, compost, and animal manure applied to a field-scale phytoremediation for treatment of mixed contaminated soil is performed. The environmental impacts associated with the production of each of the soil amendments alone are assessed. Thereafter, the total environmental impacts from the material production and transportation of the materials to the field site are evaluated. The results from the environmental sustainability assessment show that the use of biosolids as organic soil amendment is the most sustainable option.

Erosion of surface soils faced in earthen embankments is a major problem that is not thoroughly understood. Critical review of literature indicates soil type, compaction state, and surface slope are some of the major parameters that effect the erosion characteristics of surface soils. In this study pin hole test, a more commonly used robust device to evaluate the internal and surface erosion indices, is employed to evaluate the performance of five different low to medium plastic soils. The basic characteristics of selected soils evaluated according to American testing standards are reported that clearly present distinctness of selected soils. All the erosion characteristics in this study are evaluated at Proctors standard compaction state. Flow rates representing rainfall energies are induced in pin hole tests, which brings more practicality to the results. The erosion characteristics of selected soils are expressed in terms of critical shear stress and erodibility. The critical shear stress was observed to increase with increase in cohesive nature of soil while the erodibility was observed to decrease simultaneously. Further soil erosion index evaluated from erodibility results is used for effective assessment. It is found that soils with higher plasticity are likely to have more resistance against erosion. Further evaluation of erosion characteristics with varying compaction states would be of greater significance in through understanding of surface soil performance. Pin hole test more likely simulate run-off induced surface erosion phenomenon while erosion evaluation with different testing devices can be further attempted for critically assessing other forms of surface soil erosion.

The unit hydrograph (UH) concept needs observed rainfall-runoff data at the gauging site for hydrograph generation. But many catchments and watersheds in India are devoid of gauging stations and also it is not economically justifiable to collect the data and carry out detailed hydromorphological studies at every new site on a large scale. The paucity of such data sparked the idea of the synthetic unit hydrograph (SUH) concept. Most SUH procedures seek to establish relationships between parameters used to describe the UH and parameters used to describe the basin. In totality the available synthetic unit hydrograph methods/models have been classified into four groups as: traditional (or empirical), conceptual, probabilistic, and geomorphological. In the present study the probabilistic or probability distribution function (PDF) based methods/approaches are used to estimate the flood discharge at the ungauged basins in Varrar Basin at the coastal state of Kerala. The PDF based methods viz. Gray’s method, Croley method, transmutation approach, and simplified gamma approach are used to develop UH at ungauged watersheds. The results of the total flood discharge at the ungauged basins are compared with volume of 1 cm direct runoff depth.

Vegetation might naturally grow on the banks of the river, while it might spring out on the channel beds as well. Even though the capacity of flow in the river can be improvised by completely or partially removing the vegetation, experiments can help in identifying the hike in sediment loads that are carried by the flowing water. For our study, we have taken flow in the presence of vegetation in a rectangular channel using flume apparatus at three sections. The size of the flume is 6.18 m*0.3 m*0.4 m along with the size of vegetation as 6 mm in diameter and 10cm in length. For rigid vegetation, we have used an iron rod and an electrical wire for flexible vegetation and a hydraulic pump of 10hp is used. The apparatus is maintained to analyse the change in depth and velocity, experimentally first and later through software (ANSYS FLUENT). The analysis computes Reynold's number, Froude number, coefficient of discharge, Manning's coefficient, and head loss to set out the comparison between the type of vegetation at three different velocities viz., 0.2 m/s, 0.3 m/s, and 0.4 m/s for kinds of vegetation. Results show better performance for flexible vegetation based on the above parameters.

Flow duration curves (FDCs) are essential for designing and operating water resources engineering systems. Since historical streamflow records are needed for constructing FDCs, obtaining FDCs for ungauged catchments is a challenging task. The standard solution for this problem is to follow statistical regionalization methods wherein FDC information is transformed from gauged basins to ungauged basins. However, the applicability of these methods is questionable in data scarce regions. Furthermore, statistical methods are not suitable when the climate undergoes changes. Therefore, we need a process based model that can predict FDCs in ungauged basins by properly taking the physical and climatological features into account. In this study, we use a recently proposed process based FDC model to predict FDCs for 26 south Indian catchments compare the results with that obtained using a standard statistical model. The process based model performs well, suggesting that it is suitable for prediction in ungauged basins.

India is the leading country in the production of coir contributing about 60% of the world’s production. This study focusses on recovery of reducing sugars from tender coir using hot water pretreatment method. For pretreatment, three independent factors—biomass (X₁, mg/ml), time (X₂, min), and temperature, (X₃, °C) and one dependent factor—reducing sugar (Y_rs, %), were considered. ANOVA and optimization were done using Statistica, a statistical software. The second order model obtained after multiple regression analysis was found to be significant since the model p-value was less than 0.05. The coefficient of determination (R²) was 0.97 and adjusted R² was 0.95. It was predicted that 34% reducing sugar per gram of coir could be recovered when 32.8 mg/ml biomass was pretreated for 58 mins at 173 °C. The prediction was later experimentally verified.

The Vedganga River sub-basin covers an area of about 1413 sq. km in Kolhapur District of Maharashtra and Belagavi District of Karnataka State. In the present research an attempt is made to delineate the groundwater potential zones and artificial recharge sites in Vedganga River sub-basin, using integrated approach of remote sensing and geographical information system (GIS). Geologically, the study area is covered by three rock formations namely: Deccan volcanic basalt (DVB) (Upper Cretaceous to Lower Eocene), laterite occurs in the top of the hill (Pleistocene), and small patches of quartzite (Kaladgi formation). For present study we adapted remote sensing and GIS techniques and found that in association with fieldwork these techniques provide very accurate results in very short time span for delineating the groundwater potential zones. It is also useful to find the new artificial recharge sites for increase in the groundwater yield and recharge.

Looped water distribution networks (WDNs) are preferred over branched networks mainly as they provide alternate paths in case of failure of any one of the pipe in the network. However, the optimal design of looped WDNs for minimum cost results in converting them into a branching configuration thereby removing redundancy due to loop-forming links. Therefore, performance of a looped WDN under abnormal conditions such as those arising due to component failure or uncertainty in various input parameters is assured through various parameters such as reliability, flexibility, redundancy, robustness, resilience, etc. The optimal design of a looped WDN with constraints of minimum pipe flows to assure looped nature of network provides a minimum cost-less reliability network. A study is carried out to understand the effect of pipe discharges on network cost and reliability with a multiple-pipe single-loop network and a multiple looped network. Pipe discharges are represented through statistical parameter variance and reliability is quantified through demand satisfaction ratio, obtained by considering all single-pipe failure conditions. Graphical representation of network cost and reliability showed that network reliability is maximum which is achieved through minimum cost when variance in pipe discharges is minimum, as any change in pipe-discharges results in either increase in cost with decrease in reliability, or decrease in both cost and reliability. Thus, a flow distribution in the network corresponding to minimum variance is observed to provide maximum reliability in the design with minimum cost.

Hydraulic jump formation takes place during the transition of super-critical flow to sub-critical flow. The objective of this paper is to trace the water surface profile of hydraulic jump formed under the sluice gate. It is done by assuming water surface as implicit function (depend on both x and y) profile and taking four readings of water surface elevation at various intervals. These readings are used to solve the equations to get unknown variables that result in the formation of an equation. The resultant equation is used to get a differential equation in both x and y. The differential equation is solved by using numerical corrector and predictor method. The depth of water surface profile is predicted and this value is further used to get the correct value. This value is adjusted until both predicted and corrected values give the same result. The values obtained depend on the trends followed by previous readings. The current obtained value is further used to get the next value. This procedure is repeated till we achieve the water surface profile up to the desired distance from sluice gate. The obtained data is represented on the graph and the variation in elevation is analyzed at different Froude numbers range. The computation of profile gives fruitful results at the lower range of Froude numbers, as the energy loss is very high at higher range of Froude number, and turbulence factor would also considered. The obtained readings compared with experimental readings, and the readings are acceptable within certain error limits.

The development of sustainable infrastructure in the modern era involves the consumption of resources on a large scale. Due to population explosion and resulting increase in demand for infrastructure, the conservation of natural resources has become exceptionally challenging. Urbanization and hence disposal of various kinds of waste generated is a menace to the environment. Construction and demolition waste (C&D waste) is one such material which when finds suitable place in construction industry, addresses the shortage of naturally depleting materials as ingredients in concretes, contributing to the sustainable construction practices. The present study is an experimental investigation on strength behaviour of concrete prepared with 20 mm down sized processed recycled aggregate (PRA) replacing coarse aggregates partially and fully. The recycled aggregates (RA), obtained from processing of construction and demolition waste materials (C&D waste) are used as replacement to natural aggregates in concrete, with replacement levels RLs of 30%, 50%, and 100%. The sample of PRA is collected from a local C&D waste management plant. The properties of PRA are assessed as per the relevant codes of practice. The concrete mix is designed as per IS:10262 and design mix is frozen after extensive trials. The mixes satisfied the properties of wet concrete assessed using slump test (IS1199:1959). The properties of hardened concrete mixes with 100% PRA as coarse aggregates are assessed in terms of compressive strength, flexural strength, and split tensile strength, showed the variation of strength less than 5% in comparison with that of control concrete mixes recommending the replacement of PRA for natural coarse aggregates without compromise in the parameters considered for the study.

This paper discusses the performance and vehicular emission characteristics using CNG and H-CNG blend fuels in SI engine. The effects of H-CNG blends with 10% H₂ and 20% H₂ are compared with pure CNG for regulated emissions such as CO, HC, NOx, PM, CH₄, etc. in gm/km. The emission characteristics using CNG and H-CNG fuels are determined at modified Indian driving cycle, temperature being 25 ^oC and at 40 km/h vehicle speed. With the addition of hydrogen with CNG, the physical properties of mix-fuel change and due to hydrogen’s presence in the fuel CNG, the combustion performance improves. The results show that there is clearly benefits of H-CNG blends as compared to CNG alone for regulated vehicular exhausts. However, with 10% hydrogen blend with CNG in SI engine gives more NOx emissions as compared to 20% H₂ with CNG. CO and HC are reduced with hydrogen blends as compared to CNG alone. Power and specific fuel consumption are also estimated with the above-mentioned conditions.

The phosphorus (P) removal efficiency of laterite soil-based laboratory scale constructed wetland systems (CWs), for treatment of domestic wastewater, was monitored over seven months. Special focus was on the lateritic soil due to its infertility because of lack of available phosphorus. Lab scale CWs of 2.5 m×1 m×0.35 m of two numbers (R1 and R2) were used with a density of 10-11 plants/m² in R1 and 4-5 plants/m² in R2. Plants of six different species (polyculture CWs reactor)—Typha latifolia, Colocasia esculenta, Althernanthera sessilis Polygonu, Canna indicia, Ocimum americanum: L, Pistia stratoites were used. R1 reactor removed 82.04% and R2 removed 76.29% of soluble reactive phosphate. Available/mineralizable phosphorus retain in lateritic soil was 49.60% and 51.21% in R1 and R2 respectively. Remaining 23.70% and 18.0% P was lost due to harvesting of plants. The higher density of plants removes more nutrients.

The physico-chemical characteristics of the Bhalaswa Landfill site were studied by analyzing soil and plants species to estimate the heavy metals contamination of the site. The aim of this study was to explore the feasibility of using phytoremediation for reducing environmental contamination of heavy metals due to landfill site. The five most abundant plants species identified in the region were: Prosopis juliflora, Riccinus communis, Calotropis procera, Chenopodium murale, and Chrysopogon zizanioides, used as the indicators for the level of contamination at the site. The samples were collected from 0 m, 500 m, 1000 m, and 2000 m distance from the landfill site to assess the variations in heavy metals contents as a function of distance from the landfill site. Bio-concentration factor revealed the result that C. zizanioides was the best accumulator for iron, C. murale for copper and cadmium, and P. juliflora for silver and therefore can be used for the phytoremediation of the contaminated site. The lowest moisture content of 3.45% in soil was found to be at the landfill site, indicating high amount of dry density and thereby increased level of gas transport. One approach in making dumping of solids wastes on this landfill sustainable with regards to heavy metals pollution could be to grow these plants and harvest them upon maturity. This could help in controlling increased rate of heavy metal pollution of soil, groundwater in this region. A conscious effort is needed now to slow down the increase of metal pollution due to the Bhalaswa Landfill for protecting human health and environmental health.

Rapid urbanization in developing cities like Guwahati imposes significant changes in hydrological characteristics, causing frequent flash floods, and water logging, which are further enhanced by impact of the changing climate. Hence, there is an urgent need of incorporating climate change impacts in design of urban drainage structures. In this study, future precipitation of Guwahati has been forecasted for the period 2006-2100 for GCM models ESM2G and ESM2M, considering RCP8.5 scenario. IDF curves were generated using these predicted rainfall series. Rainfall intensities for both models were found to be higher than that of observed data, ESM2G being the highest. The effect of this increase in intensity was analyzed on a mini-watershed in Fatasil Hill of Guwahati City. Under ESM2G and ESM2M, both peak discharge and sediment loss were found to be increasing from the watershed. This implies upgrading the drainage system, adapting climate change impacted discharge for hydraulic design.

Predicting the plant operational parameters using conventional experimental techniques is a time consuming step. Computer-based soft computing methods have the advantages over the conventional method and were applied to overcome the changing and complex nature of the biological wastewater treatment processes due to variation in raw wastewater compositions, strengths, and flow rates, which are normally difficult to predict and control. Artificial neural network (ANN), black-box modelling approach, was used to acquire the knowledge base of a real decentralised STP which was used as process model. Detailed study of Naidu STP at Pune was carried out to predict the operational parameters such as BOD, COD, and SS one day in advance. The study signifies that the ANNs are capable of capturing the plant operation characteristics with a good degree of accuracy. The developed soft computing model incorporates the trained ANN plant model. The developed model was validated using plant scale data. This model can be a valuable performance assessment tool for plant operators and decision makers.

The present research studies the performance of diatoms in removing organic carbon and nutrients from a kitchen wastewater and fatty acid content in diatom cells. The test reactors were operated at six different SRTs—2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 days in a continuous mode. The influent and effluent samples were analyzed for VSS, COD, TOC, TN, and phosphates. Steady-state kinetics (k, K_s, Y, and k_d) for organic carbon removal were obtained by fitting experimental data in linearized Michaelis-Menten and Monod equation. The TOC, TN, and phosphates percentage removal at higher SRTs were 76%, 79%, and 85%. The FAME comprised 60% SFA and 35% MUFA for all the SRTs. Among the FAMEs, C16:0 and C16:1 were the dominant species with 50% and 35% respectively for all the SRTs. This study concluded that diatoms were capable of treating kitchen wastewater with simultaneous production of biodiesel.

Optimal management of water quality is the necessity of time in the wake of development and growth of population. Rationalization of water quality monitoring stations plays a vital role in the effective management of water quality. Krishna River is one of the major rivers in India and owns a significant socio-economic importance. Hence, an innovative approach is proposed for effective rationalization of Krishna River water quality monitoring stations by using multivariate statistical techniques [factor analysis (FA)/principal component analysis (PCA)] followed by multicriteria decision making [analytical hierarchy process (AHP)] based on a geospatial framework. The data considered for analysis consist of 15 monitoring stations with 15 water quality parameters. The water quality data was obtained from Water Resources Information System of India (WRIS) project. The FA/PCA rationalization results in nine principal sampling locations out of fifteen. Further AHP delineates the priority of monitoring for rationalized sampling sites. The monitoring station, T. Ramapuram was found to be most prior monitoring station among the nine principal monitoring stations. The proposed technique proves to be effective as it demonstrates the cause of pollution for rationalizing the monitoring infrastructure in a geo-spatial framework.

In the present work, a laboratory scale filtration unit was designed and fabricated to study the efficiency of single and dual media filter beds at different operating conditions. The experimental set-up consisted of cylindrical column with the provision of raw water fed from the top and withdrawal of treated water at the bottom. The column was constructed of Perspex cylinder with 0.20 m internal diameter and 1.2 m height. Pressure gauges were provided at three points to measure total pressure and two manometers were provided to measure the pressure drop at each bed. Experiments were conducted at different turbidity, within a range of 15 to 120 NTU at constant flow rate. The efficiency of filtration process was improved, regarding the removal of turbidity from suspended sediments. A comparison was cracked between a sand filter bed (of 30 cm bottom) and charcoal (30 cm top) layers which was placed over gravel layer of 30 cm thickness. The performance of filter beds was assessed in terms of turbidity removal capacity along with the head loss upsurge. At ambient condition, the percentage removal efficiency of turbidity by sand bed and dual media filter were found to be 73.63% and 81.40%. It was observed that the pressure drop at beds increased with passage of filtration time. The minimum pressure drops occurred at the starting point of operation for filtration. The outlet turbidity at coal level was found to be 10 NTU and at sand level 8 NTU approximately.

Water distribution networks are designed to deliver water from a source in the adequate quantity and at satisfactory pressure to individual consumers. To solve any problem, design of new or upgradation of existing water distribution network is to be necessary. So, such type of problem can be solved using LOOP 4.0, STANET, EPANET 2.0, and WATERGEMS software. Surat City facing problems like water scarcity and pressure fluctuation so for study purpose Punagam area is selected for analyzing the existing water distribution network using WATERGEMS V8i. The objective of our study is to analyze the existing water distribution network of Punagam area using WATERGEMS V8i and to recommend some measures if present network does not fulfil the present and future demand. The results obtained verified that the pressures at all junctions and the flows with their velocities at all pipes are feasible enough to provide adequate water to the network of the study area.

Ahmedabad City which is one of the fastest growing city of India has witnessed a significant rise in population (as of 2016, there is an estimated population of over 7 million people living in Ahmedabad, and over 8 million people living in the metropolitan area) along with a steep rise in the number of vehicles (around 4% per annum), industries, and the built-up areas. No doubt the city has been the harbinger of growth but all this has come with an unpleasant cost of pollution. The present paper is an attempt to analyze the impact of this urbanization on the outdoor sound levels viz-a-viz noise pollution for Ahmedabad City. Globally there is enough literature which interfaces noise pollution with human health however the state-of-the-art information is missing for rapidly growing cities of the developing nations like India. Bridging this existing gap, the present study was undertaken which had the mandate of measuring the sound levels across the busy traffic corridors of Ahmedabad City. A sampling network consisting 26 locations was established and values of the noise levels in busy hours of morning and evening was measured turn-by-turn using a sound level meter. The present paper puts forward the basic results of the noise levels across the city and gives an approximation regarding the population exposed to the high sound levels and the associated health risks. The findings of the research work would pave way for the policy makers and planners to take suitable measures for improving the living conditions of the respective people paving the way for “healthy life”.

Shuffled frog leaping algorithm (SFLA), based on memetic meta-heuristic is widely exploited to resolve distinct optimization problems. The demand for the assessment of water resources model’s parameters is growing significantly. SFLA is a population-based, cooperative search metaphor technique that has been comprehensively used for optimizing the model’s parameters during the calibration process. The major parameters considered for optimizing are width, imperviousness, and perviousness, Manning’s coefficient and depression storage of highly urbanized catchment of Delhi, India. This paper summarizes the auto-tuning of a widely used SWMM, through internal coupling of SWMM and SFLA, simulated on an hourly basis. Statistical parameters values are found to lie within the limit, indicating good model performance. Henceforth, SFLA can also be adopted as an optimizing tool, as it suggests an innovative and effective methodology to evaluate the vulnerability in urban drainage network and thus, provide effective guidelines for improving the drainage systems and for preparing inundation map.

With increasing use of plastic in every sphere of day-to-day life, dumping of plastic and related products on land is also increasing. As plastics are prepared using monomers, additives, oligomers, flame retardants, there exists a chance of leaching of these constituents to soil and reaching groundwater finally. This study focused on two aspects: (1) understanding knowledge gaps associated with the nanotechnology-solar assisted breakdown of polyethylene and issues using published reports. There is not much research on degradation of plastic waste dumped on land in natural condition using TiO₂ nanoparticle solution, leaching of plastic constituents from polyethylene, impact of leaching constituents on groundwater pollution. (2) Exploring the feasibility of using TiO₂ nanoparticle-sunlight combination for breaking down plastic into constituent and its impact on groundwater through a pot-based study for a period of 30 days. The photocatalytic degradation of the LDPE was investigated using weight loss, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). We observed that there was no degradation of polyethylene and hence groundwater risk due to constituents leaching is negligible. There is a need for future studies fulfilling above-mentioned gaps to understand nanomaterials assisted plastic degradation.

Building energy consumption forms a significant portion of the total annual energy consumption worldwide. Proposing thermal energy performance improvement strategies accurately, pertaining to real life buildings is a challenge. In this work, a methodology consisting of building energy modelling and simulation of the calibrated energy models is proposed. Validation of energy model is achieved through measured indoor temperature and heating energy demand. For improvement, a parametric study of calibrated model by varying various input parameters (building envelope, weather, set temperature, etc.) is done to get minimized annual energy consumptions.

Tidal inlet is an opening along the coast which facilitates the exchange of water and nutrients. The energy extracted at the tidal inlet using tides is called tidal energy. Tidal energy is reliable and not depleting. Since the density of seawater is 800 times denser than air, the energy extraction is much favorable and reliable resource. Because of the above said advantages, tidal energy production has become an important energy source at global platform. The study area chosen is the Sri Lankan coast. The tidal condition along the Sri Lankan coast is semi diurnal. Identification of the locations for energy extraction is important as the width of the identified inlet at the coast plays an important role in energy extraction. Also, parameters like tidal range, basin area have to be taken into account in order to consider the inlet suitable for energy extraction. In this paper, tidal inlets will be identified along the Sri Lankan coast, the data will be collected for the parameters that are required to consider an inlet for energy extraction and the potential energy that can be extracted at the inlets will be assessed.

The “Housing for All” mission by the Government of India in urban and rural areas is a commendable step in the direction of making India an economic superpower. Additionally, in order to boost the investment and private sector participation in the affordable housing sector, the Government, in the Budget 2017, has accorded the ‘Infrastructure’ status to this sector. While this may be a step in the right direction, it also worrisome to note that many infrastructure projects in India suffer significant cost and time overruns due to factors that are identified in the paper through a literature review. In order to overcome these challenges, the paper maps the identified issues affecting the sector with the strengths of alliance contracting framework (ACF), a practice widely followed for executing public infrastructure projects in Australia. It is found that the ACF holds the key to resolve the bottlenecks and implement the mission better.

Infrastructure procured through public-private partnership (PPP) delivery model has bundling of project activities as the prime motivation in contract framing. But the theory of bundling has not been studied with respect to the influence and subsequent behavior in network infrastructure such as water supply, sewerage projects, electricity, and solid waste management. This paper identifies and develops theoretical constructs that explain and improve the benefits intended through bundling in PPP projects in the specific context of network infrastructure. The decision to bundle the segments or rather unbundle is dependent on bringing in enough competition, the holistic expertise of bidders to the proposed project (bundle or unbundle), lender competency and extent of private investment when project finance is involved, and information asymmetries that predicts the efficiency of bundled project in the environment of contractual hazards. The developed framework would help the governments to create the right projects and harness the full potential of private sector participation.

Chandigarh, Le Corbusier’s magnum-opus in city planning, the “mecca” of modern architecture, and a notable example of avant-garde urbanism of the mid-twentieth century, is often looked upon with awe as a successful modern Indian city. Designed for a population of half a million, Chandigarh today is home to 1.2 million. While Chandigarh is a totally planned city, close to 30% of the city’s population lives in slums. Slums—the very paradox of planning, the anti-thesis of planned growth, and a facet of urban development which Chandigarh’s planners could not foresee, today pose a challenge to the city. The situation calls upon urban planners and administrators to realistically conceive and implement viable housing strategies for these poor residents who form an inseparable part of the city as they have to be looked upon as partners in the city’s progress. The present paper attempts to explore the measures taken by Chandigarh Administration over the years in providing shelter solutions to the slum-dwellers of the city including the recent affordable housing project in which 25,972 small flats are being constructed to house close to 120,000 inhabitants.

Mumbai, financial capital of India, divided into 24 wards of MCGM covers 437.71 km², is facing major problem of development because of existing slums. The horizontal topographical growth due to shortage of land and major problem for vertical growth is the present slum area in Mumbai. This study is carried to find out ward wise conceptual undeveloped area in Mumbai and to equally boost vertical growth of Mumbai by providing strategically attractive FSI in relation with population density of respective wards. Another aim is to compare conceptual undeveloped area as per latest revision of DCR 1991 and proposed FSI from this study in each ward of Mumbai. Research summary also includes new strategic FSI policy for undeveloped areas of Mumbai without interrupting in current growth of developed areas, by providing new strategic FSIs for each residential category in each ward of Mumbai will boost the development of slums, clusters, etc.

The challenge of achieving high productivity and quality in the construction work requires a continuous supply of skilled workers. In most of the developing economies, skilled workers are being supplied by various off-the-job training (OFJT) institutes. Moreover, despite investments in terms of time, money, and efforts, OFJT does not produce desirable skills in the workers due to lack of actual site experience during training. Hence, to overcome the limitations of OFJT facility, on-the-job training (OJT) system is developed by integrating the concept of recognition of prior learning (RPL) in worker’s screening process. A case study is presented by executing the proposed methodology at one of the construction sites in India where 51 construction workers are screened, and OJT isoffered to them. The increased productivity due to the enhancement of worker’s skill reveals the importance of OJT facility for the construction industry.

Road network, being an integral part of the development of a country must be maintained in functional condition. Generally, maintenance of the road involves prior evaluation of road condition so as to implement appropriate maintenance. Therefore, precise evaluation of road condition should be given due consideration prior to the implementation of maintenance process. This paper demonstrates a methodology that has been developed on the basis of probabilistic approach for evaluating the condition of the road. The proposed study assumes that the condition of road follows a probabilistic behaviour ranging from the best condition to worst and attempt to evaluate the condition of the road using surface distress survey based on probabilistic approach. Surface distress survey was carried out on three samples of a road that can be clearly identified as best, average, and worst condition samples based on the total deduct values for different distresses in each sample. The probabilistic pavement condition index (PCI) is then evaluated using the total deduct values in each sample. Validation for six roads of Jawhar Taluka, Palghar District, Maharashtra State, India, was considered for surface distress condition survey using the proposed method. Twelve pavement distresses were inspected and measured on the field with traditional approaches avoiding expensive and sophisticated instruments. The study concluded that the proposed method can be used where limited fund and less time are available for inspection and maintenance of roads.

Construction industry is one of the most hazardous industries which needs a complete assess and deals with various tools to constantly uphold its health and safety performance. Safety management is essential to manage hazards and improve success in project accomplishment. This study was conducted to examine the existing position of OHSMS in the Indian construction industry. The consciousness levels of OHSMS among different construction types were examined to recognize the consequence of OHSMS among different types of construction industry. The questionnaire was developed to investigate the difference of OHSMS consciousness between residential and commercial type constructions. This study displays different OHSMS consciousness levels among residential and commercial type constructions. The differences were troubles and success of executing OHSMS, outside assist required for implementing OHSMS and incentive for enlarging OHSMS. The consequence of these differences can be further examined with appropriate data set and it warrants additional studies in the future.

The development regulations or planning guidelines are the tools and instruments to regulate the nature, character, and design of the development in urban areas; they also influence the quality of the urban form and urban landscape, i.e. urban built and unbuilt environment. One of the primary aims of the development regulations is to attain sustainable environment conducive to the growth and development of humans in concurrence with the other species of nature. This paper advocates the need for the planning interventions and development regulations based on the carrying capacity of the urban environment which is contextual and utilize the development potentials and resources of the urban ecosystem in order to achieve the sustainable development goals. The paper further presents a balanced approach based on the assimilative capacities of the urban environment for the prevention of irreconcilable situation arising out of incidental interventions for urban development in India, thus resulting in the encroachment upon the environment and natural resource system in the country.

The Urban population of India registered a growth of 32 percent, rising from 285 million to 377 million from 2001 to 2011, and by 2050, 900 million people will be living in Indian cities. This will put a huge stress on urban planners to grow an infrastructure. In this paper, we examine the Government of India's programs for affordable housing in India and tenure form initiatives that have impacted the housing sector in India as there was a dramatic policy change in 2016. These policies have the potential to lead more transparency in the housing sector, which will affect the housing market in the short and long-term for home buyers. The policies that affect Indian real estate is Goods and Services Tax, Modification to the Benami Transactions Act, Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act 2016, construction of affordable housing 100% deduction of profit, change in arbitration norms for construction companies, interest subsidy for first-time home buyers, exemption of service duty for affordable housing construction, DDT exemption for SPVs to REITs, and demonetization are discussed with the present situation due to a different change in taxation by government.

In the field of infrastructure planning and management, utilizing life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) is considered a mandatory requisite for achieving the sustainability of our infrastructure facilities. Even though LCCA model is readily available in textbooks, yet applying LCCA is never a simple routine. Reviewing academic literature and industry guidelines yields wide ranging models of LCCA. One of the main reasons for this disparity is that advancement in analyzing the performance and the impacts of different types of infrastructure facilities has progressed at different levels. This paper presents a general framework and guidelines for conducting LCCA for infrastructure facilities. The main aim of this framework is to guide practitioners in infrastructure management in applying this technique; but in due course, the comparative analysis between different types of infrastructure facilities presented will underline deficiencies and snags in applying LCCA and further drive besought research and advancement.

In the last few years, India has witnessed sustained economic growth. Consequently, large-scale migration from rural areas to urban areas has been witnessed due to industrialization, better job prospects, rising income, and high expectations of the lower and middle-class population. This situation has put tremendous pressure on the urban housing supply and affordability. Like most of other countries, providing affordable housing has remained a major challenge for both the policy makers and developers in India. Despite significant policy changes to incentivize affordable housing schemes to make them more attractive for the investors, various factors have continued to impede housing affordability in the major cities. This paper presents an overview of the affordable housing policies and issues in India. It also highlights the affordable housing strategies and policies adopted by some of the European nations in the last few years. It further examines the potentials of application and uptake of these policies within the Indian context.

Urban land use dynamics is an important component for land use management and regional planning of the area. In this paper an attempt is made to analyze the processes of spatial and temporal change pattern in Kota City of Rajasthan, which is undergoing a fast but unplanned development. Satellite-derived urban land use maps of 1999, 2011, and 2016 and Markov model coupled with geospatial technology have been adopted to predict the spatial distribution of land use change in future. Transition among different land use types is analyzed to understand the spatial as well as temporal variability during a period of 1999-2016. Markov model performance was evaluated between the empirical urban land use map extracted from Landsat 8 (multispectral merged panchromatic) image and the simulated land use map obtained from the Markov model. Later spatial pattern changing characteristics were investigated by predicting the land use/cover changes up to 2030. Result implies the rising trend in built-up areas especially in periphery of the city with decreasing trend in agriculture land. This study suggests that this spatio-temporal model provides not only a quantitative description of changes in the past but also the estimated direction and magnitude of likely changes in the future. Hence, if the current trends exist without sustainable development measures, severe land degradation will occur that could indirectly affect the local environment of the city. Therefore, this study is helpful for local authorities to understand the complex land use system and develop guidelines as well as policies for sustainable urban expansion and ecological conservation.

The rural-to-urban migration in India has been pretty rapid over the past few decades. Providing affordable housing with sustainable infrastructure will always remain a challenging task for engineers and architects. Prefabrication entails walls, foundation stones, and other units of construction, which are manufactured in bulk, transported to the location of the building, and simply ‘fixed’ on site which can be used to build modular and affordable housing in India. Contrary to common belief, prefabrication is not a new construction process but one which has been used extensively and widely for many years. Furthermore, as this study demonstrates, this process is not exclusively based on high technology approaches but is, in fact, appropriate and advantageous in building affordable housing. This study seeks to determine the feasibility of prefabricated techniques in the context of affordable housing in urban areas. The study compares a double storey prefabricated affordable housing model with a conventional housing model made out of brick and concrete on the grounds of economic and sustainability considerations. The results of cost analysis revealed significant cost reductions by practising prefabrication in construction. It is found that prefabrication in construction is an economic and sustainable practice that could cater the needs of providing affordable housing in the current scenario of urbanization in India.

This paper defines urban regeneration and renewal in the Indian context and focuses on dynamics of implementation of urban built environment projects in India. Discussion is with respect to three ongoing schemes planned under program management approach. The paper explores alignment of Indian urban regeneration and renewal initiatives with respect to the program management guidelines of PMI (USA). It is studied that though there is an attempt to plan these schemes or missions as programs, implementation is primarily project based. The analysis and recommendations would be relevant for the policy makers, planners, and implementing organizations.

The keenness of the Government of India in boosting the infrastructure sector is very evident with the large budgetary allocations. It is also expected that the Government would adopt the public-private partnership (PPP) model for project delivery. Though PPP projects in India were successful in many instances, many projects could not meet the objectives due to issues like improper demand forecasting, delayed land acquisition, and contractual quagmire. In this paper, such problems that are first identified through a literature review are then mapped against the various project management techniques like last planner system (LPS), relational contracting techniques, integrated project delivery (IPD), and alternative bidding techniques. Frameworks discussed in this paper have proven successful in solving typical construction and project management issues elsewhere. The paper concludes that the application of such simple but robust and tested project management strategies and techniques would provide long-term solutions to the current problems in the Indian infrastructure (PPP) sector.

Primary education is typically the first and important stage of compulsory education. The study employed geographic information systems (GIS) techniques to show spatial distribution of primary schools and accessibility to primary education. Database required for the study was obtained through interviews and site visits to the education facilities. The data analysis was carried out using nearest neighbor analysis and standard deviational ellipse tool. The spread of service areas of each school were known using standard deviational ellipse tool, which showed the effectiveness of the GIS for spatial data analysis. The resulted analysis of nearest neighbor showed that the spatial distribution pattern of schools was dispersed. Further, served and unserved areas were identified. The study area selected is Pune Metro City which is part of the most potential developing country: India. The paper concludes with proposed locations for schools and recommendation of the study at the design stage of development plan preparation.

The current modern age is one for transit-oriented development where airports have become an engine for economic growth and urban development. The Indian aviation sector is growing rapidly and is on the verge of transformation, and recently, has seen a rapid growth, attracting new customers with lower rates and better comfort level. Furthermore, with the ever-increasing numbers of airways commuters, there is a need to provide them with suitable infrastructure, i.e. airports and related services. Consequently, the last few decades have seen the commencement of many new airports and many others being proposed. Therefore, making it vital to also inspect the social, environmental, and economic impact it has in the vicinity. The research mainly aimed to develop strategies for augmenting socio-economic infrastructure around Greenfield Airport, in this case for "Dholera International Airport" near Ahmedabad. The infrastructure gap was identified by conducting a current situation analysis. Primitive infrastructure gap was identified by assessing the quality of life. From the list of identified facility gap, some facilities were chosen and their needs, benefits, and outcomes were analyzed. The location of the facility was done using Weber location problem which was solved further using ArcGIS software. The outcome of the research is in the form of location for different infrastructure facilities around the proposed airport. These results eventually helped in proposing strategies to augment the socio-economic infrastructure around the airport and increase the quality of life of the residents.

The main objective of DDA's Master Plan 2021 is to make space for the projected population of 22-23 million by 2021—in the capitals. The estimates show that we need 24 lacs dwelling units by the year 2021 i.e. 3 lacs per year. To cater this requirement as per the MPD-2021, 40 percent will be through re-densification of existing areas and the remaining 60 percent of the requirement would have to be met through creation of new housing in urban extension. This paper is an attempt to study the redevelopment norms proposed in MPD 2021 including related notifications and discusses existing redevelopment activity in Delhi. The paper analyses the scope and options of redevelopment activity in various planned and unplanned residential areas of Delhi. Further, the redevelopment process is explored and study recommends the modifications in existing set of framework to enlarge or limit the scope of redevelopment depending upon the holding capacity of the area at settlement level.

Computers have completely changed the way documents are produced currently. Similarly, information technology has pushed the envelope and barriers in the domain of exchanging information and documents. Information technology (IT) is defined as “the use of electronic machines and programs for the processing, storage, transfer, and presentation of information”. It has been discovered that many business operations are now more or less entirely computerized. Though, many construction firms have been utilizing information technology (IT) devices, but they are not evaluating whether its utilization making any impact on their operations and activities. The performance of construction industry can be further improved with use of information technology (IT). In spite of the fact that the construction industry has reaped substantial benefit from IT, the applicability of information technology impact questionnaire (ITIQ) in developing countries like India is quite unexplained up to a certain level. The present study is mainly focused on to develop ITIQ with 17 items to explore the impact of IT on the construction industry in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities of India. The survey was designed on the respondents’ perception on how their firm’s performance had been enhanced. In this survey respondents are required to designate their responses on a five point Likert’s scale (1 = Strongly Disagree to 5 = Strongly Agree). Data was collected from 662 respondents using convenience sampling technique between July 2016 and March 2017. Only 593 responses are selected for analysis and remaining disqualified due to incomplete data. Overall, the results showed that the ITIQ can be a reliable tool for evaluating the impact of IT on construction industry as far as Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities are concerned. At the same time use of IT and technical software would have to be increased significantly for substantially improving the firm’s performance.

Land, the nonrenewable resource, is used as a commodity to cater the food, shelter, and other infrastructural demands of urbanization. The severe implications of unmonitored conversions of agricultural lands to non-agricultural activities are seen in peri-urban areas. A local food network has been widely discussed globally, but Indian regional planning has not given much importance to the spatial food security aspect. The following study focuses on potential local food network localization suitability for the identified case of the Pune Metropolitan Region (PMR). By studying the food supply chain, foodshed, food miles for identified diets for PMR, a baseline scenario for food consumption pattern and production is mapped. It is observed that PMR as a region has potential to develop an efficient local food network.

The measures used to define accessibility of a public transit system (PTS) fail to address the user perspective of accessibility to the transit system with a feeder service. In this study, a fuzzy accessibility measure employing temporal impedances experienced by the PTS users and the value they associate with each of the impedance was developed for quantifying access to the PTS. A predictive model was developed using neural networks to ascertain the impact of quantified accessibility on choice behavior of the users. Data for this study were collected in Indore City in India onboard a BRT through a questionnaire survey which comprised of both revealed and stated preference nature. A sensitivity analysis performed for the accessibility measure revealed that time spent waiting for, and travelling in the feeder service impact the overall choice of mode.

Red light violations (RLVs) pose a huge risk resulting into severe crashes at signalized intersections. The present study proposes a novel approach of proactive safety evaluation using post encroachment time (PET) and investigates the effectiveness of signal countdown timer (SCT) in reducing RLVs. For this purpose, a 4-legged signalized intersection located in Delhi is selected. A “before-after” safety analysis is conducted both in the presence and absence of SCT at the onset of red. Study results show that the occurrence of RLVs during initial red is more at timer off condition. Furthermore, low average PET value is observed at “no-SCT” condition, indicating a risky crossing attempted by violators. The probability of RLV crashes is reduced by 37.2% at the same intersection when timer is on. Hence, SCT is found to be an effective countermeasure to reduce RLVs at the initial red as well as severe crash types at signalized intersection.

In Srinagar City, in India, compared to other Indian cities 75 percent of sidewalk facilities are not available and the availability of sidewalk facilities as per Srinagar Development Authority (SDA) is 24-25%. According to the master plan of Srinagar, Jammu, and Kashmir, we studied walkway key indicator concepts, safe design guide lines of sidewalks, segment qualitative, and walkability indicators as per four-C rule and compared Indian cities with other Asian cities based on the walkability score index (WSI), model conflict rating analysis, and availability of walking paths. From this study we concluded that in future there is a scope to construct the new lanes of sidewalk facilities, ensure maintenance and cleanliness of walking path, sidewalk obstructions, sidewalk continuity, sidewalk width condition, sidewalk quality, and sidewalk surface conditions in the Srinagar City.

Majority of Indian population is dependent on groundwater to get drinking water. However, availability of groundwater in India has been reducing drastically due to urbanization, industrialization, and rapid growth of population. Nitrate is one of the most alarming chemical contaminant present in groundwater because its concentration in groundwater is increasing worldwide. Excess level of nitrate in drinking water leads to health hazard especially to infants and also affects the aquatic organisms. Sorptive properties of hydrous bismuth oxides for abatement of nitrate have been seriously examined and reported in many literatures. With the aim to further improvise the sorption potential of hydrous bismuth oxides (HBO), cations (Mn, Zr, Sn, Al, Ti) of higher charge has been added into the matrix of HBO. Addition of stannous into the matrix enhanced nitrate sorption potential of hydrous bismuth oxides. It was observed that pH of treated water was within the permissible limit. XRD analysis ensures that materials are crystalline in nature as they showed large and sharp peaks.

Pedestrians’ movements are not restricted to lanes or specific routes. However, they are restricted by the physical boundaries around them such as the presence of walkways or pedestrian ways. To know how well roadways accommodate pedestrian travel and their friendly movements, it is necessary to assess the walking conditions offered to the pedestrians in a city. Estimation of pedestrian level of service (PLOS) is the most common approach to assess the quality of operations of pedestrian facilities. From the past studies, it is observed that most of the PLOS evaluation methodologies are based primarily on vehicular traffic flow theory. There is a limitation of PLOS evaluation method which comprises the basic requirements of pedestrians such as comfort, convenience, safety, security, and attractiveness. This study aims to identify and formulate a suitable methodology to evaluate PLOS for off-street pedestrian facilities in Silchar, Assam. In order to determine PLOS, a set of qualitative data are collected from six different locations in the city centre. A questionnaire survey is carried out to get the real-time response of pedestrians in the road environment. People of all genders and age group have participated in the survey. Weightage for various facilities are calculated using the maximum correlation coefficient and normalized survey data. PLOS is estimated with five categories ranging from ‘A’ which signify the availability of best facilities to ‘E’ indicates the worst conditions. It is carried out based on maximum and minimum score obtained from the analysis. Among five categories, three different PLOS are observed such as categories B, C, and D for the selected study locations. This study suggests an alternative approach which is more flexible and can easily be incorporated into design considerations. It will also help to evaluate and prioritize the needs of existing roadways for sidewalk construction and for other necessary facilities.

Indian unsignalized intersections operate quite differently in comparison to their western counterparts. To address traffic heterogeneity, lane indiscipline, non-priority rules, lack of movement control, and non-uniform road geometry that exist on Indian roads, microsimulation is the best-suited technique. While a few attempts have been made on the calibration of signalized intersection under heterogeneous traffic, unsignalized one is still an unexplored area. Hence, the present study proposes a calibration methodology of PTV VISSIM simulation model for an unsignalized intersection under heterogeneous traffic condition. The 85^th percentile accepted gap time is utilized as a performance measure in calibration. Calibration parameters are identified using Morris sensitivity analysis, and their optimum values are obtained using genetic algorithm (GA). Simulation results show that VISSIM provides reasonable accepted gap time for the unsignalized intersection. Overall, it is concluded that, using the proposed methodology, the developed network performs well and replicates field situation efficiently.

In developing countries like India, there is no lane discipline and most of the roads and highways consist of heterogeneous traffic. The estimation of heterogeneous traffic flow characteristics is complex in traffic stream consisting of mixed vehicles with varying dynamic characteristics which tend to share the same space of the road without much speed control and lane discipline. Passenger car unit (PCU) or passenger car equivalent (PCE) is a metric used for expressing road or highway capacity. They exhibit dynamic nature based on various factors like vehicle characteristics, roadway characteristics, etc. In the present paper, dynamic nature of passenger car unit (PCU) values are analyzed under heterogeneous traffic conditions on two-lane urban roads in six unique locations of Andhra Pradesh State, India. The estimation of PCU values are based on speed and vehicle’s projected area on the ground. Speed equations are developed to estimate the speed of vehicles for given traffic volume and composition. Later the acquired PCU values are compared with Indian Road Congress (IRC)—106:1990 recommended values. In addition, effect of carriageway width on PCU factors of each category of vehicle and variations in the PCU factors due to change in traffic volume and composition is demonstrated.

Electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) is a non-invasive sub-surface technique which is widely used for investigation of various geological and engineering problems. The conventional test includes soil boring and collection of soil samples for finding out the subsurface soil profile and engineering behavior of soil. These conventional tests are borehole specific and cannot give an overall picture of the subsurface, particularly when the investigation area is large and heterogeneous. In such a condition, geophysical tests like ERT, seismic refraction, spectral analysis of surface waves, etc., are worthy, economic, and time efficient but the accuracy and reliability depend upon the accuracy in interpretation of the field data. The present study consists of performing ERT along a newly constructed bypass road which showed sinking in some locations during embankment construction. The survey gave a clear picture of the subsurface soil profile and the extent of penetration of top stiff soil into the soft organic stratum below. Some boreholes were also dug in the affected area to confirm the ERT results. It is observed that the ERT gives a better prediction of soil behavior in an erratic site.

The knowledge of roadway capacity and level-of-service (LoS) are important basic input required for planning, design, analysis, and operation of roadway systems. There is a limited body-of-knowledge available about highway capacity and level-of-service (LoS) of multi-lane urban roads in Asian countries including India, where traffic composition and flow behaviour are considerably different from that of the developed world. Traffic flow on multi-lane urban roads in India are designed for high-speed movement, but, heterogeneity in traffic, non-lane based movement, and frequent access provided from service-lane, result in overall reduction of speed of vehicles, at certain times. Such roadway facilities possess following characteristics: dominance of car traffic, higher design speeds, and underpass/overpass at the location of intersection, which also makes it (multilane-urban roads) significantly different from the urban arterial roads. Twelve hours of video were captured on ten-lane divided section using digital camera, covering wide range of traffic flow, and composition prevailing on these facilities. Heterogeneous traffic flow is converted into PCU equivalent using the method proposed by Kumar et. al. Speed-flow relationship is developed for the study section using Van-Aerde model. LoS analysis was carried out using large amount of field observed dataset aggregated at 1-minute intervals to show maximum variation in traffic flow parameters. Empirical studies on some of the important traffic flow parameters such as: flow, density, and area occupancy are highlighted here. LoS clusters were defined using k-mean clustering technique. The findings of this study are also compared with American highway capacity guidelines. The capacity and LoS thresholds estimated along with its methodology may be useful for roadway having similar traffic conditions.

Forecasting the number of vehicles on the road is an important research problem in intelligent transportation systems (ITS) applications. One of the popular time series techniques reported in many studies for traffic flow prediction is seasonal ARIMA (SARIMA). The problem with SARIMA is it is very complex, difficult to understand and interpret the model parameters, requires specialized software for model building and prediction. To overcome the above said limitations with SARIMA, a model based on simple exponential smoothing was proposed and evaluated in the present study for traffic forecasting under heterogeneous traffic conditions. Traffic flows from two previous days were used as input to predict the flow for the next consecutive day. It was found that, smoothing method outperforms the SARIMA with MAPE of 10.43, which indicates the better performance of the developed model.

Pedestrian level of service (PLOS) is a tool to measure the performance of the facility provided, for movement of the pedestrian. There is no suitable methodology is available for Indian context where street vendor is a predominant factor, which reduces the mobility and safety of the pedestrian. The aim of the study is to develop a PLOS model considering the effect of the street vendor. Pedestrian perception, pedestrian and vehicular operational characteristics, and geometric characteristics in presence of street vendor are considered for data collection. A set of questionnaire survey is conducted to evaluate perceived PLOS. Regression analysis is performed to formulate a PLOS model which incorporates both qualitative and quantitative parameters. From the study it is observed that most of the sidewalks are underperforming and requires an urgent improvement of the pedestrian facilities.

Pedestrians are the most vulnerable road users especially in mixed traffic condition with traffic infrastructure designed for motorized vehicles. Among 1.2 million death registered on world’s road death rate of pedestrians, cyclist, and motorcyclist are almost half. In year 2015 every day around 1,374 accidents and 400 deaths taken place with 9.5 % of pedestrian involvement on Indian road. These situation forces traffic facility designer to rethink about the prevailing situation and design practice. In this study the 3D trajectory based approach is used to determine pedestrian safety index using a surrogate safety measure (SSM). Post encroachment time (PET) has been adopted as SSM. Safety index threshold value has been developed for two separate cases namely, pedestrian pass first (PPF) and vehicle pass first (VPF) for different category of vehicles based on vehicle speed as a variable. The study will be useful for the safety of pedestrians in traffic facility design.

Rapid urbanization in developing countries has led to an unprecedented increase in demand for mobility services, which in turn has put tremendous pressure on urban transport infrastructure and services. Promotion of non-motorized vehicles for trips is inevitable for resilient and sustainable transportation system. Broadly trips can be categorized in to three types working, shopping, and recreational trips. If characteristics of the trips specially shopping are analyzed then effective promotion policies can be framed to increase use of non-motorized vehicles. An attempt is made in this paper to analyze shopping trips characteristics in Vadodara City like trip distance, travel time, mode choice behavior along with socio-economic characteristics of the commuters so that land use can be planned and designed accordingly to promote non-motorized vehicles use. Benefits of NMT are multifold like reduction in air and noise pollution, saving in fossil fuel, increase in health of citizens, reducing congestion on the roads.

Bottleneck effect on a road network is a localized disruption where movement of vehicles were partially obstructed. A bottleneck is a result of a specific physical condition, which can be resultant of situations like vehicular accidents, parking of vehicles on the shoulder lanes also because of a slow moving heavy vehicle, blockage of lanes for any construction activity, etc. Due to the blockage of vehicular movement, disruptions in terms of shock waves over the roads sections will be observed, where vehicles movement will be affected successively one vehicle after another. In the present study, a simulation approach had been adopted in quantifying the effect of bottleneck present in the midblock road sections. From the analysis it was found that the bottleneck section is operating up to its capacity, the section which is near the upstream side of section is highly effected, in terms of capacity reduction. Whereas the section which is on the downstream of the section is not operating beyond the bottleneck capacity. In a similar sense, the sections which are on the upstream is affected based on their distance from the bottleneck. Based on the analysis the bottleneck effect had been examined on the road network.

Two major cities of Gujarat: Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar will be connected by the means of Metro System whose primary aim is to ease public transport. As a result of this project, 4 corners of Ahmedabad will be connected with 2 corridors and 32 stations. This paper focuses on impact on transportation system in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar due Metro Link Express for Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad (MEGA). Study of routes covered by Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) and routes which will be covered by Metro rails is carried out. The study is done on the basis of location of stations and density of commuters at that station. Areas covered by both the public transport systems are studied and a conclusion is drawn on validity of proper location of stations. Areas not covered by both the transportation system are also studied and mentioned. A brief outline on future effects on transportation of twin cities i.e. Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar by implementation of multi-modal transport system is given. It was observed that few regions of Ahmedabad from where the major commuter traffic may be generated in future are not covered in the route.

A vehicular traffic accident analysis process should start with identifying the cause(s) of the accident. The multitude of factors responsible for causing an accident, acting solitary or in combination, include road, driver, vehicle, and environment characteristics. As such, the accident analysis process assumes complexity in deciding the perceived domain, and relative importance of the influencing factors. This paper presents a method to simplify this complexity by use of analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Once this is done, AHP is further applied to identify the most hazardous ones, called the black spots. The methodology is demonstrated by taking a case study of a National Highway in India (NH-52, Sikar-Reengus), whereby, the identification of accident black spots, and further investigation is done so as to be able to suggest improvements. Geographic information system (GIS) is used for spatial visualization of the accident data. Four accident black spots are identified. The major reasons contributing to the accidents are found to be poor visibility, over speeding, drunk driving, etc. Suitable mitigation and preventive measures are suggested for improvement at the spots.

This paper investigates the best model for presenting the speed-density relation for non-homogenous traffic due to no lane discipline conditions. In this study, a data collection procedure is proposed together with a check process of data accuracy and validity. Field data, collected using automatic-counters and videotaping, were investigated for different aggregation intervals and results indicated that the 30 secs interval was the most appropriate size. Among the parametric (statistical) and non-parametric (data-mining) models evaluated for fitting the speed-density relationship, the exponential model produced the best fit with R² of 91%. Moreover, the lane capacity obtained from the developed model was compared with the capacity reported in the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) for homogenous traffic condition. A factor of value 0.8-0.85 was suggested when applying the HCM procedure to estimate the saturation flow rate for non-homogenous traffic conditions in developing countries, depending on the free flow speed on the road.

The work done so far to evaluate automobile users’ level of service (ALOS) were mostly based on the conditions observed in developed countries. As the traffic flow characteristics in developing countries are different in many ways, the objective of this study is to develop a suitable ALOS model to assess ALOS of urban streets for heterogeneous traffic flow conditions. To meet this objective, both traffic and geometric data were collected from 102 urban street segments of eight Indian cities. A perception survey was also carried out taking automobile drivers to assess the street service quality they perceive while driving. Several feed-forward back-propagation neural network models are developed using the significant variables found. Levenberg-Marquardt neural network (LMNN) model with linear activation function consisting of 10 neurons in the hidden layer is found to be the best-performing one having R² of 0.933 and RMSE of 0.1089, which is validated to check its suitability of determining ALOS.

Modified efficient solution on road for the walkers or pedestrian other than zebra on non-weaving section of roundabout which technically is mal-adoptive to cross but it observed to be conventional trend of crossing due to quick time cross or short distance (d) governed by refuge lay. Less literacy ethics increases the risk to life of pedestrian. Defects and sub-standard roundabout dimensions can be rectified and recommendations are possible. Present SITI study of user’s psychic, defects in crossing after analysis lead trials (I and II) of analytics to reduce errors inventory to linear and exponential equations; adding metric to the central island diameter as factor of possessiveness towards life of pedestrian. Prior to design, formulation check for sight, pedestrian speed, and vehicle speed is mandate followed by chart w.r.t least error at least value of d, d’, and ϕ at raw or pedes-doped design.

Paratransit is the intermediate public transport mode which offers services having a flexible schedule and flexible route. These are important modes in the small and medium-size cities in developing countries like India. Silchar City is the second largest city in terms of municipal area and population of Assam State, India. In this study, the role of paratransit is assessed in terms of percentage share of paratransit vehicles and percentage share in terms of passengers carried by them. The socio-economic characteristics of paratransit operators had been assessed through a questionnaire survey. It has been established through the study that paratransit modes are the sole urban public passenger carrier and most popular mode in the city. The conclusions from the assessment of socio-economic characteristics of the paratransit operators are important for the planning of social welfare schemes. Utility map of paratransit shows the usage at different locations of the city.

It is highly needed to maintain and upgrade those all things which are widely use in our personal and professional life. The parking system is very much annoying at this time, but the smart is defined as the eco-friendly as well as perfectly digital city in all the aspects. The report is all about the smart city and smart parking system with the time saving facilities and better safe and secure environment using certified data by intelligent transport system and latest inventions. This is really necessary to open each and everything about the new smart city which will be our next life. So, this report has each and everything in very clear way. The system of smart parking and smart city is reliable up to at what point is showing in this report with the app-work and infrastructure work together.

The study of the spatial distribution of workers, jobs, and activities and their relation to travel within cities is of great interest to planners. Literature, primarily from North American and European studies, reveals that urban form and structure of cities affect travel behavior. The results obtained, however, varied in different geographical regions. This study focuses on the influence of urban structure on travel behavior for an Indian city, Solapur. The city is divided into several concentric doughnut-shaped zones at an interval of one kilometer from the city center. Parameters of urban structure and travel behavior are worked out and their inter-relationship is established discretely for each zone as well as for the entire city through regression analysis. The results provide a comparison of varying travel behavior as one moves away from the city center while simultaneously establishing a relationship with its urban structure, allowing planners to formulate sustainable transportation strategies.

Increasing the width of roads by providing additional lanes is an effective strategy to manage the increase in peak-hour traffic. In this context, the present study aims at forming an association between carriageway width and capacity for two-lane rural highways. The study conducted at 10 different sections of National and State Highways in Kerala had carriageway widths ranging from 6.7 to 9.1 meter under mixed traffic conditions and considered 5 vehicle types. Traffic data were collected using video recording technique, and the speed and flow values were obtained by analyzing the recorded video. A Green Shield’s macroscopic stream model was then used to develop the fundamental traffic flow relations. Using these relationships, speed-flow curves were plotted and capacity of each section was found out. A second degree equation between width and capacity was derived, and it was observed that carriageway width had significant positive impact on the capacity of the road. It was concluded that increasing road width is a valuable method to reduce congestion by increasing the capacity and subsequently reducing the travel time. Further, the model developed in the current study predicted a lesser capacity compared with previous studies, and this might be an indicator of the influence of higher side friction on the traffic flow.

The present study attempts to develop service time prediction models for different vehicle categories on toll plazas in India under mixed traffic conditions. Service time includes the time elapsed in transaction of toll tax and time required by a vehicle to travel a distance equivalent to its own length. Field data are collected at fourteen different lanes at three toll plazas in different region of the country by the video recording method. All vehicles in the traffic stream are divided into seven categories. The service time values are obtained as low as 2.64 seconds (s) to as high as 58.76 s for small car and trailer respectively. This variation in service time is dependent on random arrival of vehicle at tollbooth and drivers and tollbooth operator’s personal attributes and therefore simultaneous equations are developed to relate service time of a vehicle type with the traffic volume and its composition. These equations are solved for some assumed values of traffic volume and traffic composition and effect on the service time of each vehicle type is explained. Accuracy of the service time values estimated through equations is checked by comparing the estimated value with those calculated directly from the field data. The service time models proposed in the present study may be useful for planners and managers for designing and evaluating the performance of toll plazas.