Hilly areas have one of the most fragile ecosystems, which need to be conserved. Therefore planning and development strategies for hilly areas shall have to be designed with added sensitivity and stress on integrated development. The development approach shall comprise sound land use planning and settlement planning. Following strategies may be adopted for an integrated planning approach for conservation, preservation and planned development in hilly areas.
a) Strategy 1: Land Conservation and Optimization
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Environment inventory/impact assessment — For planning of the new settlements or working out the strategies for the growth of the existing settlements, it is necessary to conduct detailed environmental inventory/impact assessment. The inventory would involve geological investigations, slope analysis, soil, flora and fauna analysis, climatic inventories, vulnerability to natural disasters (such as earthquakes, landslides, floods etc), etc. In addition to this the aesthetic factors, cultural, architectural and historical heritage, scenic/landscape value shall also be taken into consideration.
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Identification of developable area — Identification and quantification of developable area is done by deducting the natural ecological area from the entire township jurisdiction area. Jurisdiction may be large to control the surrounding areas. The classification of land uses should be given only for developable
area, while the rest of the ecological area shall be for conservation or restoration. Hill Town Developable Area = (Hill town jurisdiction area – Natural Ecological Area)
- Land use optimization — Keeping in view the scarcity of good buildable land and also the high cost of the construction, it is necessary to optimize the use of land by calculation of carrying capacity and land suitability analysis. Sustainable building approach should be adopted, such as use of cost effective and appropriate building materials and technologies.