ABSTRACT Green infrastructure is amongst the most significant elements of any urban landscape, both due to biomass and diversity. Their key role in climate change mitigation and ecosystem dynamics is well known. However, it is ironic that the vegetation has undergone destruction and degradation in the modern times due to rapid and haphazard urbanization in developing countries. Dearth of cheaper, precise, comprehensive, universally applicable, and environmentally benign approaches in the quantification of urban green cover changes and ecosystem services, has contributed to patchy and inefficient management and conservation approaches towards urban green infrastructure. Hence, at this juncture, the state of the art technologies of remote sensing and geographic information system can play an imperative role in conservation of urban green infrastructure. The study has been developed in three stages, which includes green cover change assessment; carbon sequestration estimation and lastly governance analysis. Review of development plans highlighted current growth is favouring grey infrastructure (residential area has increased from 11.27 percent to 42 percent and increase of 30.73 percent in just 20 years) over green infrastructure, also recreational and open spaces in is below planning standards and spatial distribution and size of these green spaces (both natural and manmade) is uneven throughout the city. This study has attempted to explore ecological conservation values of green spaces in an urban ecosystem. The study constitutes a geospatial approach to assess urban Land Use / Land Cover Changes especially green cover changes (NDVI differencing landuse change detection and supervised classification), and carbon sequestration potential estimation for year 1999 and 2010 using the light use efficiency (LUE) model. Results showed that Pune's built up area has increased from 30.86% to 49.80% i.e. 44.96 sq km. between 1999 and 2010, at the expense of barren and fallow land (reduced by 36.80 sq km.) and combined vegetation (sparse and dense), which has lost a total of 8.53 sq km area. Whereas, the total estimated above ground phytomass in 2010 was found out to be 238643 tC yr?1, which indicates a good stock, but still the total sequestration potential of Above ground green infrastructure has dwindled from 1.12 MtCO2 Yr-1 to 0.87 MtCO2 Yr-1 between 1999 and 2010. Lastly, urban green infrastructure governance analysis highlighted some serious shortcomings, Study found that current governance strategies suffers for island conservation approach and lacks public support and awareness, financial stability and finally a long term Green city vision. This is leading to gradual decline in both diversity and quantity of green infrastructure in the city. CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Need for the Study 2 1.2 Hypothesis 2 1.3 AlM 2 1.4 Objectives 2 1.5 Research Questions 3 1.6 Methodology 3 1.7 Chapter Outline 6 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 9 2.1 Cities and Climate Change 9 2.2 Green Infrastructure - Concepts 10 2.3 Green Infrastructure: Smart Approach for Sustainable Future Cities 11 2.4 Green Infrastructure Configuration 12 2.5 Green Infrastructure's Origins 13 2.6 Green Infrastructure Benefits and Practices 14 2.6.1 Ecological Benefits 15 2.6.2 Social Benefits 15 2.6.3 Economic Benefits 15 2.7 Urbanisation, Green Infrastructure and Climate Change 16 2.8 Green Infrastructure Planning In Some Countries 17 2.9 Green Status of Some International Cities 19 2.10 Green Status of Some Indian Cities 20 2.11 Necessity of Green Infrastructure 21 3 CITY PROFILE 25 3.1 Introduction 25 3.2 Geography 26 3.3 Climate and Rainfall 26 3.4 Linkages and Connectivity 27 3.5 Demography 28 3.5.1 Demographic Trends 28 3.5.2 Spatial Distribution of Population 28 3.6 Municipal Area 29 3.7 Land Use 29 3.8 Morphological Development of the Pune City 29 3.9 Vegetation in Pune 30 3.9.1 Natural Resources 30 3.9.2 Manmade Resources 31 3.9.3 Sensitive Microhabitats 31 3.9.4 Tree Species diversity of Pune 31 3.9.5 City Programs and Guidelines 32 4 GREEN COVER CHANGE ANALYSIS 35 4.1 Green Cover Change Assessment (City Development Plan) 35 4.1.1 Introduction 35 4.1.2 City Development Plan 35 4.1.3 Review of City Development Plans, Pune 35 4.1.4 Comparison with Norms40 4.3 Green Cover Changes Assessment Using Remote Sensing 42 4.3.1 Data Used and Sources 42 4.3.2 Methodology for Remote Sensing Data Analysis 42 4.3.3 Data Acquired 43 4.3.4 Image Processing 44 4.3.5 Visual Interpretation of Satellite Images 44 4.3.6 Image Interpretation Key 44 4.3.7 NDVI Differencing Landuse Change Detection 46 4.3.8 Satellite Data Interpretation 48 4.3.9 Ground Truth or Checking 48 4.3.10 Image Classification 49 4.3.11 Accuracy Assessment 51 5 CARBON SEQUESTRATION ASSESSMENT 57 5.1 Introduction 57 5.2 Carbon Allocation in Woody Plants (Trees and Shrubs) 58 5.3 Biomass: Concepts and Estimation 59 5.4 Remote Sensing Methods for Biomass Estimation 61 5.4.1 Use of Reflection Coefficients (Linear Modelling) 61 5.4.2 Use of Solar radiation (Physical Modelling) 61 5.5 Biomass Productivity (Gross Primary Productivity and Net Primary Productivity) 61 5.6 Database Used 62 5.7 Model Description (Light Use Efficiency Model) 63 5.8 Converting Fixed Carbon Data to Atmospheric Carbon Data 65 6 Urban Green infrastructure Governance 69 6.1 Urban Green Infrastructure Governance 69 6.2 Urban Green Infrastructure Governance: Three Challenges for Integration 70 6.3 Framework for Analysing Urban Green Infrastructure Governance In Pune City 70 6.3.1 Laws and Policies and Planning 70 6.3.2 Stakeholders and Organisations 74 6.3.3 Processes 77 6.3.4 Funding and Delivery Mechanisms 78 6.3.5 Ownership, Access and Use Rights 79 6.3.6 Knowledge Management 79 6.3.7 Monitoring and Evaluation 80 7 CONCLUSION and RECOMMENDATIONS 83 7.1 Green Infrastructure Management Plan 87 7.1.1 Introduction 87 7.1.2 Priority / Vision 87 7.1.3 Green Infrastructure Principles 88 7.1.4 Goals/ Objectives 90 7.1.5 Recommendations and Actions 91 8 References 103 9 ANNEXURE 113 9.1 Annexure I: Key Concepts 113 9.2 Annexure II: Green Infrastructure in Pune City (Garden's and Parks) 115 9.3 Annexure III: Forest Management Project 120