Comparative Assessment of Ecosystem and Biodiversity Conservation Measures in Indian Smart Cities: A City Biodiversity Index Approach

Abstract

Biodiversity and ecosystem services are of great importance for maintaining the sustainability of a city. Singapore Index, also known as City Biodiversity Index (CBI) is a tool for monitoring and evaluating a city's performance and progress related to conserving and enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem services. We have utilized the CBI for three Indian smart cities, i.e., Pune, Faridabad and Raipur for assessing their biodiversity level and for ranking them based on CBI scores. A standard method of CBI scoring as mentioned in the 'User's Manual on the Singapore index on cities' biodiversity' has been followed. Though there was a severe lack of data availability for these Indian cities, still the CBI scores, based on the limited data, could identify the gaps in the biodiversity protection and related programs for these cities and also could point out the areas that should be taken care of for improving the situation. Thus this study would be a motivational tool and could provide incentives for local Governments to start making inventories and monitoring their programs on biodiversity and ecosystem protections which would be beneficial for the cities' long run sustainability. The uniqueness lies in the fact that, in this research, the CBI scoring approach has been implemented for three particular Indian smart cities, which was never done earlier for any other smart city in India.