The location of the current project is in the peri-urban areas of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. As per the Regional Plan 2016-36, the region has 32% of its land under urbanization, and the rest 68% of the land is under forests, mangroves, mudflats, intertidal zones, and plantation zones (Appendix 3). There are numerous farming, fishing, and tribal communities whose livelihoods depend on these zones' immediate natural environment. In many cases, these communities locate themselves around water bodies that form their primary source of water. However, due to increasing urbanization in the periphery, these villages' resources are under pressure due to the migrant population that serves the upcoming townships. These existing villages, in such cases, become the places for the arrival of such migrants.

In the absence of any structured water and sanitation system, in these villages, any rapid increase in population leads to untreated sewage, wastewater, and solid waste, polluting the groundwater table. The municipalities in the periphery of the region that struggle to provide infrastructure to these new townships do not have any resources to implement centralized water and sanitation solutions for these villages. In some cases, they focus on existing water bodies and build concrete edges with walkways and manicured gardens in the name of beautification. It leads to a loss of riparian biodiversity, storm-water interception, and microclimatic disruptions by creating heat islands apart from affecting communities whose livelihoods were often dependent on these lakes.

Thus the proposal innovation is to design a passive decentralized wastewater, sewage, and solid-waste system managed by the inhabitants of these villages and integrate them with the surrounding ecosystem. SPARC and community-based organizations would build the communities' capacity and make a plan to treat the wastewater and sewage that would receive a primary anaerobic treatment through reed beds. The villagers could then use the nutrient-rich water in the surrounding lake and the agricultural fields that they own.

Thus, this project will impact the place's micro-climate by protecting biodiversity, reducing emission, pollution, and flooding, and augmenting livelihoods. Scaling such a project through similar villages in the metropolitan region can have a meaningful impact on protecting vulnerable communities from climate change brought about by unplanned urbanization. For this stage, the proposal is to map habitations with lakes in the region, create federations where possible, and develop a plan for a demonstration to submit to Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) to further invest in such projects.