Shamshabad: Verdant landscapes for all seasons at airport

Shamshabad: Airports are gateways to nations offering a global canvas with opportunity to embellish with intricate detail and create love and belongingness to a city.

The GMR Hyderabad International Airport, the gateway to south and central India, offers a panoramic verdant entry to the airport with its majestic array of palm trees queuing up in the median of the main access road of close to 8.5 km, connecting two entry points

The entire airport landscape comprises mainly of entry experience, streetscapes, rotaries and a central park. Even during the Covid pandemic, the airport kept greeting passengers and visitors with its lush greenery, thanks to the innovative measure of installing cloud-based automatic irrigation system, which covers 90 per cent of the entire landscaped area across 80 acres of landscape spread along the airport spine road.

A unique green wall, or vertical garden covering 150 sqm at RGIA, is the first of its kind in the country to be displayed under indoor conditions. The airport also maintains Bermuda variety grass around the airside and complies with the regulatory standards. This is maintained within specific height and keeps insects free.

According to the airport officials, designing such a large landscape covering more than 350 acres of airport land that borders on a hot semi-arid climate with soil type being mostly red gravel with low carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous content was a challenge in itself. It necessitated careful planning, including selection of plant species.

Maintenance of the vast landscape requires meticulous planning and sustained efforts.

It is the perseverance and dogged efforts of the team that led to beautifully developed landscape being maintained at highest standards, resulting in the airport being adjudged the best maintained large landscape for eight years in a row.