Asia’s Hill Cities need to become climate resilient

The sharp rise in tourism in Asian hill cities has led to escalation in the supporting infrastructure projects, such as highways, hotels and resorts, and housing. Growing population, both resident and floating, has necessitated growth in the infrastructure for core services such as water supply, solid waste and sewage, not to miss out the shopping complexes and entertainment facilities. But these unchecked activities at such a massive scale has caused serious consequences for the hill cities. The recent cases of land subsidence seen in the hill cities of Uttarakhand in India were just an example. While the thrust of the activity is economic and tourism-centric, there needs to be a more balanced urbanisation

Asia is host to some of the most picturesque hill cities of the world, such as Shimla (India), Paro (Bhutan), Baguio (The Philippines), Bandarban (Bangladesh), Pine Oo Lwin (Myanmar), Maubisse (East Timor), Cameron Highlands (Malaysia), Da Lat (Vietnam), Nuwara Eliya (Sri Lanka), Pokhara (Nepal), Bogor (Indonesia), and Murree (Pakistan), to name just a few. Hill cities offer a pleasant retreat to the people from far and wide, particularly those who live in the humdrum of metropolitan and mega cities. With rising income levels, the desire of the people from the metropolitan cities to spend their vacations in the hill cities has been growing steadily and rapidly. The hill cities too have been welcoming the tourists, as they bring in wealth and employment.
Besides tourism, the hill regions of Asia have also been increasingly subjected to introduction and expansion of massive hydroelectric projects, owing to the large gradients available in the flow of the rivers that originate in and flow through the hill regions. These projects require creation of huge reservoirs to impound the river flow and also the tunnels, that often extend to several kilometres, to let the impounded water reach the power generation station.
The growth strategy for the hill regions and cities has often overlooked the repercussions on the long term sustainability of the ecology of these areas. This has resulted in situations of deforestation, soil erosion, landslides, land subsidence, and water and air pollution. Shimla and many other hill cities in India have shown growing incidences of buildings developing cracks, attributable to land subsidence, which, in turn emanates from largescale heavy construction activities with buildings allowed to come up on steep slopes as well, poor drainage management in and around the city, lack of availability and, wherever available, poor enforcement of building norms, besides other accentuating factors such as inadequate waste management. All these factors impact the local environment and induce ecological degradation.
Paro (Bhutan) and Murree (Pakistan) provide a striking and typical challenge of poor municipal solid waste (MSW) management that the hill cities in Asia face almost uniformly. The MSW contains hazardous and electronic waste including batteries, household cleaning products, cosmetics, automobile maintenance products and electronics such as phone, television sets, bulbs, and tubelights. These do not disintegrate well even in landfills and spread the toxin in the environment including the subsoils. Pokhara in Nepal and Nuwara Eliya in Sri Lanka are yet another hill cities highly frequented by tourists and is consequently subjected to climate warming and the decreasing trend of rainfall. This trend indicates changes in the climatic condition that may affect water resources, vegetation, forests and agriculture.
The development strategies being pursued in the hill regions have brought in social sustainability issues also. The people in the hill regions have traditionally been utilising their surroundings as common goods, for minor forest produce and the like. However, the infrastructure and other projects like hotels, resorts, dams and highways have been taking away the common assets of lands and forests from the local residents, making them bystanders for the assets which they had traditionally ‘owned’. A significant such case of a five-star resort and entertainment centre in Bandarban (Bangladesh) was reported extensively. The issue is quite prevalent in other hill cities/areas across Asia too. In fact, citizens in many hill cities have started raising concerns on the adverse impact of growing number of tourists. Baguio, on the Philippines’ Luzon island, which is a mountain town of universities and resorts and called the “City of Pines,” has indicated the misgivings that the residents have about tourism, which is reflected in the “Irritation Index”.

The Positive side

It would be, however, unfair to argue that the hill regions and cities should be left completely untouched from any development of tourism and related facilities or the infrastructure projects. As human population and prosperity is growing, people shall continue to look for travel and tourism to the hill cities as a desirable mode of adventure, entertainment and social and economic growth and development. Tourism promotes economic activities and generates employment. In the scenario of globalisation of the economy, the society too is getting gradually, but steadily, globalised. People of the hill regions are no longer averse to welcoming outsiders, rather they generally welcome the visitors. On the other hand, people from the other regions find it rejuvenating and exciting to visit the cities that are located in the laps of the mountains and the hills. In fact, countries such as Switzerland have high per capita income in the range of USD 90,000-1,00,000 per year mainly owing to tourism. India, with per capita income of about USD 2,500 per year can definitely get major gains in its economy via tourism promotion, for which the hill cities offer ample opportunities. Some hill cities like Pine Oo Lwin (Myanmar), have gotten so used to large number of visitors that during the COVID-19 pandemic, for want of tourists’ arrivals, they started looking like ghost cities.

The Way Forward

Climate Change in the hill regions and hill cities is a cause of serious concern. While hills provide the opportunities for adventure and spiritual tourism, they are also facing the adverse impact of climate change, which is brought in, or accelerated by, inadequate attention being given to the climate resilient development of the hill cities and their surrounding areas, besides electricity generation on a large scale. A well-designed approach to regional and local planning that is based on adequate scientific studies of the geology, geomorphology and the climate patterns of the hill cities is called for.
Based on the scientific studies, the capacities of hill cities for hosting visitors needs to be worked out. Furthermore, tourism for the hill areas and hill cities should focus on ecotourism model, which is an approach to tourism where the focus is on preserving nature and educating the tourists about it. The ecological studies of the hill regions should also help in determining the size of the dams that could be built in the hill regions for hydroelectric power generation. Hills are the crowns of pride for their country and hill cities are the gems in that crown. Handled carefully and scientifically, the hill cities and regions can provide immense economic and social benefits not only to their residents, but also to the rest of
their countries.