Welcome To
Centre for Urban Ecology and Sustainability
Our Mission
The Centre for Urban Ecology and Sustainability (CUES) aims to address urban ecological issues with a view to offering solutions, and develop a skilled cohort of professionals who actively engage in, and find solutions for urban ecological challenges. The Centre serves as a focal point where researchers, government & non-governmental, citizens and private agencies converge and participate in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of sustainable environmental projects in cities. CUES collaborates actively with other schools and centres in AUD like the School of Human Ecology, School of Development Studies (SDS), School of Design (SDS), Centre for Community Knowledge (CCK) on areas of common interests. The Centre envisages to build linkages with teaching and research programmes within the University to provide students with hands-on learning, field practicum and engaged scholarship opportunities. The Centre hosts interactions and dialogues between Universities and other organizations in the city across thematics in urban sustainability.
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Our Blogs
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The Peri-Urban Interface: Development and land-use Politics
Kartik Chugh(Research Intern, CUES-TIGR2ESS) Towards Peri-urbanisation Through a Development Lens After decolonization, the world was divided into the developed and undeveloped world. The economic disparity between the First and the Third world generated the vision of development. Like many other developing countries, the Indian subcontinent after gaining independence initiated a Nationalist Development Project based on…
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Theorising Peri-Urban: Moving towards a Political Ecology Perspective
Kartik Chugh A review of the literature suggests that there is no consensus on a single definition of the word “peri-urban”. Different authors have defined the peri-urban according to their needs and scope of work. However, they all agree that peri-urban is an area situated at the periphery of a city, having attributes of both…
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Harvest of the Pandemic
Fizala Tayebulla The pandemic has brought in several structural and value changes in our lives. Some of the changes that have transcended us being physically constraint to our homes are the changes in our lifestyles and values of a ‘safe’ and healthy life (ushering in practices that have a fighting chance at beating Covid-19). We…
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Plastic Woes and the Pandemic
Divya Mehra The world only recently started taking baby steps to deal with the troublesome nature of plastic and was coming to an understanding of the scale of damage it has done and can do to our environment, that the year 2020 brought with itself a pandemic. Besides causing unprecedented global health and economic crisis,…
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Management of Urban Commons through the Social-Ecological System Framework
Vijaylakshmi Suman In urban areas, the condition of different forms of nature and access to them is not unanimous. Some are found in a better condition, as they are more ecologically functional and thriving, whereas some others have been completely decimated. One of the human used resources, like lakes in the city, are embedded in…
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A Short Introduction to Urban Ecology
Ajay Immanuel Gonji According to McDonnell (2011), the discipline of ecology came into the picture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and was defined as the scientific study of the abundance and distribution of organisms, and the interaction between each other and also the environment. In this newly developing field of ecology, human…
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Plant-Pollinator Interactions at Dheerpur Wetland Project Site
Kartik Chugh After almost 5 months in the lockdown, the operations at the Centre for Urban Ecology and Sustainability (CUES) resumed, albeit slowly. Recently, while working at Dheerpur Wetland Project Site (DWPS), two of my colleagues found out that the flowers of Oroxylum indicum tree had started blooming. The news got us pretty excited because…
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Understanding Street Dogs
Ajay Immanuel Gonji Introduction In an earlier article, I had talked about a unique behaviour in street dogs where they are known to respond to high-pitched anthropogenic sounds such as sirens by means of howling. While I researched this particular behaviour, I was drawn to several other aspects of dog behaviour which I was absolutely…
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National Capital in Pandemic: Visualising the story so far
Sonali Chauhan On August 11, we completed five months since COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic. With over 22 lakh cases and around 45,000 fatalities, India is amongst the worst-hit nations after the US and Brazil. In the first eight days of August, the total number of new cases reported from India surpassed the U.S.…
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Understanding the Sounds of Animals
Himanshu Choudhery With the advancement of technologies over the past several years, the field of animal conservation has significantly evolved. Earlier, with the limitation of proper tools, there were many impediments to conservation programmes. Now, with the help of new tools such as bio-logging and bio-telemetry, camera traps, drones, sound recorders and advanced digital technologies,…
CUES Restoration Project Site: Dheerpur Wetland, Delhi
Description:
Restoration of Dheerpur Wetlands: A collaboration of CUES, AUD & DDA
The marshes and wetlands of the Yamuna region once extended from Azadpur to the present-day banks of the river. This region has been heavily drained and undergone an extensive land-use change during the last fifty years. Remnants of once widespread historical marshes can now only be seen near Jahangirpuri, Dheerpur and Burari. Since wetlands are increasingly appreciated globally and nationally for their socio-ecological functions and provisions, the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) decided to restore the wetlands of Dheerpur.
Fragments of these wetlands have been filled up, dyked, dried and carved out for seasonal agriculture. Hence, it may not be sufficient to only stop their further degradation of wetlands of Dheerpur but would also be necessary to restore them for posterity. With this view, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has entered into a Management Agreement with Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD), in which the land ownership remains with DDA, and AUD would restore the wetlands. DDA would assist in civil work, funding research and restoration work, whereas AUD is entrusted with providing technical guidance for restoration and maintenance of the wetlands.
The Management Agreement for Dheerpur Wetland Project between AUD and DDA was signed on 17 February 2015. Following which the project was formally inaugurated on 19th June 2015.
Click here to read more on the Dheerpur Wetland Restoration
Location:
Dheerpur Wetland Project Site, Gandhi Vihar, Gopalpur Village,
Delhi 110009
Visiting hours:
10am – 5pm
Project Initiated:
Delhi, June 2015
Centre for Urban Ecology and Sustainability 