Webinar 4: Blue Spaces in Cities: Realising their Value as a Public Health Resource

This Event is now completed

Date: November 13, 2019
Time: 16:00 hrs to 17:00 hrs (IST)
Last Date to register – 10 November, 2019

According to the National Health Report (October 31, 2019), air and water pollution continue to impact health of people in India. Air pollution-linked acute respiratory infections contributed 68.47 per cent to the morbidity burden in the country and also to highest mortality rate after pneumonia. Acute diarrhoeal diseases attributed to contaminated drinking water, caused the second highest morbidity at 21.83 per cent. Cholera cases went up to 651 in 2018 from 508 in 2017. Thus, the environment and human health are intrinsically interwoven. Extreme natural events like earth quakes and cyclones, polluted air and water, use of plastics, fishing, mining and unsafely managed excreta have a massive impact on our health. They manifest themselves through infectious diseases, diarrhoea, cardio vascular diseases and various other health grievances.

Health is not the product of our health systems. Rather, it is determined by a complex set of genetic and environmental factors, some of which society has the power to control. Access to - and use of - natural spaces in our cities play a role in determining our state of health. While there is good evidence on how ‘green space’ positively affects human health, there is very little information on the co-benefits associated with ‘blue spaces’ i.e. outdoor environments - natural or manmade - that prominently feature water and are accessible to humans. The presentation showcases the approaches that the BlueHealth project has made to better understanding how human health may stand to benefit from appropriately designed and maintained blue spaces in our cities. It also explains the tools developed to assess and characterise blue urban spaces, their use and the activities conducted in them, and the risks and benefits associated with them.

Objectives:

Understanding the need to highlight the linkages between water, health and urban living, the School of Water and Waste, AAETI, Centre for Science and Environment is organizing its fourth in a series of webinar events on the value of blue spaces in our cities.  

• To show how health is in part determined by natural environments in the urban landscape.

• To demonstrate how green space research is done, but also how it doesn’t inform us on water as a feature of our environments.

• To explain how the BlueHealth project sought to address gaps in understanding and generate tools that allow planners, policy makers and other decision-makers to harness co-benefits to health associated with urban blue infrastructure.

• To demonstrate the various tools that have been produced in BlueHealth.

 

Target Groups: Students and Practitioners working in Urbanization, Health, Water, Sanitation and WASH sector.

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