BENGALURU: Basavanagudi, one of the oldest areas of South Bengaluru, is home to many trees with large canopies. When Express photographer Vinod Kumar T took a walk around MN Krishna Rao Park, he found that the space around them was mostly paved or asphalted.
“Leaving no space for water to seep into the ground and reach the roots of the trees is one of the reasons they fall during the rains,” environmentalist and former Chief Conservator of Forests with Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) told Express.
The reach of the roots has to be proportionate to the canopy of the tree for all the branches to be well-nourished, he said. “The tree cannot manufacture water, and with the digging of borewells, drying up of lakes and tanks and dearth of ground and surface water, they depend largely on the rains.” So water should be allowed to percolate not just around trees, but in other places too, he added.
Since the rains took hold in April, close to 500 tree and branch falls have been recorded in South Bengaluru alone, according to Assistant Conservator of Forests Ranganathaswamy H S. The worst hit have been Jayanagar and surrounding areas like J P Nagar, he said. “They account for around 50 per cent of the losses.” The unpaved space around trees should be a minimum of a three-foot radius over the girth of the tree, he recommends.
