Due to undergoing urbanization trend worldwide, distance between city inhabitants and nature is increasing. Urban greenery/forestry is one of the ways to bridge this gap between people and nature. Most of the Indian cities are far behind in quality as well as quantity of urban forests than their counterpart in Europe and America. High population density is one of the reasons for underdevelopment of urban greenery sector. India can learn a lot from Chinese model of urban forestry development as both of them are the topmost populated countries of the world. Recently, some of the Indian cities like Chandigarh, Gandhinagar and Delhi have shown some improvement in this field. Status of urban greenery in some of the Indian cities has been discussed in the paper.

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Biomass, leaf water potential (Ψ l ), net photosynthetic rate (P N ), transpiration rate (E), stomatal conductance (g s ), leaf to air temperature difference (T diff ), and instantaneous water use efficiency (WUE) were measured in the seedlings of Dalbergia sissoo Roxb. grown under irrigation of 20 (W 1 ), 14 (W 2 ), 10 (W 3 ), and 8 (W 4 ) mm. Treatments were maintained by re-irrigation when water content of the soil reached 7.4 % in W 1 , 5.6 % in W 2 , 4.3 % in W 3 , and 3.2 % in W 4 . Seedlings in a control (W 5 ) were left without irrigation after maintaining the soil field capacity (10.7 %). Seedlings of W 1 had highest biomass that was one tenth in W 5 . Biomass allocation was highest in leaf in W 2 and in root in W 4 and W 5 treatments. Difference between predawn leaf water potential (Ψ Pd ) and midday (Ψ mid ) increased with soil water stress and with vapour pressure deficit (VPD) in April and May slowing down the recovery in plant leaf water status after transpiration loss. P N , E, and g s declined and T diff increased from W 1 to W 5 . Their values were highly significant in April and May for the severely stressed seedlings of W 4 and W 5 . P N increased from 08:00 to 10:00 and E increased until 13:00 within the day for most of the seedlings whereas g s decreased throughout the day from 08:00 to 17:00. P N and E were highest in March but their values were low in January, February, April, and May. Large variations in physiological variables to air temperature, photosynthetically active radiation, and vapour pressure deficit (VPD) indicated greater sensitivity of the species to environmental factors. WUE increased from W 1 to W 2 but decreased drastically at high water stress particularly during hot summer showing a kind of adaptation in D. sissoo to water stress. However, low biomass and reduced physiological functions at <50 % of soil field capacity suggest that this species does not produce significant biomass at severe soil water stress or drought of a prolonged period.

Developing countries have high proportion of black money and related corruption in the society in comparison to the developed ones. This aspect has to be kept in mind while conducting contingent valuation method (CVM) questionnaire survey (in-person) at the site whose economic valuation is being done. Participant observation method (POM) and unstructured interview schedule (UIS) are the two means, which must be used in addition to structured interview schedule during CVM studies in developing countries to arrive at a reasonable non-market economic valuation figure of an environmental amenity. It has been observed that researchers generally ignore this fact during survey for primary data collection among respondents who are quite well off, educated and belong to countries of huge parallel economy. However in the present study, we have utilized these two means during primary data collection for a CVM study and reached the conclusion that CVM has to be used with caution even among educated masses in the developing countries.

One-year-old seedlings of Dalbergia sissoo from a single provenance were planted in non-weighing lysimeter tanks in July 1998 with a view to provide optimize irrigation parameters in desert areas. Varying water regimes were maintained by re-irrigating the seedlings at 36.2 mm (W 1 ), 26.5 mm (W 2 ), 20.2 mm (W 3 ) and 18.1 mm (W 4 ) treatments when the soil water content decreased to 7.56%, 5.79%, 4.44%, 3.23% in the respective treatments. Height, collar diameter, number of leaves and leaf area were highest (p < 0.01) for the seedlings irrigated at W 1 level. Above-mentioned growth parameters did not differ between W 1 and W 2 treatments but the seedlings in W 2 level had highest biomass per liter of water use (i.e., water use efficiency, WUE). Irrigation levels of W 3 to W 5 negatively affected seedling growth, biomass production and nutrient accumulation. Soil water availability below W 2 level (i.e., 5.79%) caused an increase in percentage of root biomass to the total biomass of the seedling. However, there was a decrease in percentage of leaf dry biomass in W 3 and W 4 treatments and in percentage of stem dry biomass in the seedlings of W 5 treatment. Seedlings in W 5 treatment survived till at soil water potential of -1.96 MPa.Limitation of soil water availability in W 3 and W 4 treatments affected growth and biomass production of D. sissoo seedlings. W 2 level was best for growth and biomass production in which water use efficiency was highest. Therefore, better growth and biomass production of D.sissoo seedlings could be obtained by irrigating the seedlings at soil water content of ≥5.79% in the loamy sand soil.