new delhi to avoid getting flooded like chennai in a changing climate delhi will need to integrate its human settlements with small and large biodiversity habitats such as wetlands scrub forests and floodplains indian national trust for art and cultural heritages intach natural heritage division recently submitted an exhaustive report to delhi dialogue commission ddc and other delhi government departments on the impact climate change could have on delhi and how the city can prepare itself with maps of various geological zones the report states that retreating glaciers in jammu and kashmir himachal pradesh and uttarakhand will lead to water shortages and even drought in river basins upstream and downstream of delhi satellite images show that of the 29 glaciers feeding gori ganga a tributary of the ganges 20 are retreating intach also cites assessments by urban climate change research network uccrn that found that the mean temperature of delhi has risen between 1931 and 2005 although not significantly however most of the warming has happened in the past three decades the semiarid delhi region is likely to warm up by 1525 degrees celsius by the 2050s in 1987 and 2002 there was hardly any rain in delhi these were aberrations but due to climate change such phenomena could increase in frequency said manu bhatnagar from intach adding that they are trying to see how the city would endure two consecutive years of drought do we have backup rainfall pattern has changed a lot we are losing waterbodies between 1999 and 2010 25 of delhis waterbodies were lost the report devises a plan to deal with such a contingency said bhatnagar the report highlights how maintaining the original natural zoning of delhi is important to deal with the impact of urban phenomena such as heat island effect a patch in the city that is significantly warmer than surrounding areas these natural divisions include kohi or hilly tracts bangar or the mainland khaddar or the sandy riverine area and the lowlying dabar intach recommends connecting and greening ecological corridors in delhi as they promote persistence of species while the eastern part of the city may not have much scope as it is mostly built up the conservation body has recommended recreating areas rich in biodiversity in the west of the city that still has open countryside the land that intach wants used for such climate mitigation activities includes biodiversity and district parks heritage areas unprotected areas such as marshes lakes ponds floodplains quarries power plants village commons and drainage channels among others these have been pointed out in maps one of the most important recommendations is for utilising the commons or gram sabha lands that used to have ponds and forests