In recent years, the environmental and social crisis created by the frequency of floods, water scarcity, cyclone and pollution have exposed the failure of the government to face the challenge. These problems are rooted in the increasing neglect of urban water bodies or wetlands. Development priorities in urban areas have ignored the utility of these valuable water bodies, resulting in their encroachment and destruction over the years. A similar trend is manifest globally as well. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) estimated that wetlands cover seven per cent of the earth’s surface and deliver 45 per cent of its natural productivity and ecosystem services. Globally 1.3 to 3 billion people depend on the wetlands for drinking water as well as food and livelihood. But despite the benefits, the wetlands have been systematically destroyed worldwide as they are converted for industrial, agricultural and residential use. India has lost more than 38 per cent of the wetlands in the last decade; the rate of loss has been as high as 88 per cent in certain districts. The country’s wetland wealth has been assessed by the National Wetland Atlas 2011 and prepared by the Space Application Centre. It has estimated 756,000 wetlands with a total area of 15.3 million hectares, accounting for nearly 4.7 per cent of the country’s total geographical area. As per the Ramsar Convention, the natural waterbodies from perennial rivers, streams, estuaries including mangrove swamps, natural depressions and marshes (locally known as beels, chaurs, dhars, pats etc. ), ox- bow lakes, ponds and tanks, sewage farms and canals and seasonally inundated floodplains in India constitute wetlands. Only 26 of these numerous wetlands have been designated as Ramsar sites. The importance of wetlands lies in the fact that their unique ecological features provide a range of regulatory and provisioning services for environmental sustainability of urban areas. Wetlands such as tanks, ponds, lakes and reservoirs provide water for irrigation, domestic needs, fisheries and recreational use, groundwater recharge and flood control. The irrigation tanks of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and the traditional tanks of Bihar, Odisha , Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal respectively account for nearly 60 per cent and 25 per cent of India’s tank irrigated area. Tanks play a vital role in harvesting the surface run-off during monsoon and then allowing it to be used later. Apart from irrigation, these tanks are also used for fisheries and as a source of water for domestic needs. The utility is particularly important in terms of household income, nutrition and public health for the poor. Lakes such as Chilika (Odisha), the Dal lake (Jammu & Kashmir), Deepor beel (Assam), Kolleru Lake (Andhra Pradesh), Loktak (Manipur), Vembanad (Kerala), Nainital (Uttarakhand), Ameenpur lake in Telangana have played a significant role from the perspective of recreation, tourism, fisheries, irrigation and domestic water supply. Surface reservoirs have also played an important role in providing irrigation and domestic water security in both rural and urban areas. Wetlands act as a sink for the discharge of untreated sewage and other wastes from rural and urban areas. This checks pollution .They serve as a low-cost measure to reduce point and non-point pollution. The wetlands in Kolkata are unique examples of treatment of municipal waste materials and fruitfully utilizing it for fish culture and horticulture. Wetlands regulate and lessen the impact of floods and help in maintaining the groundwater table. They are considered to be a natural capital substitute for conventional flood control investments such as dykes, dams, embankments. A major factor behind floods is the gradually shrinking wetlands because of the changing land-use pattern in urban areas. Wetlands support a diverse species of vertebrates and invertebrate animals and plants. It is estimated that freshwater wetlands alone support 20 per cent of the known biodiversity in India .Some species depend on the wetlands for their entire life-cycle, while others are visible only during particular stages of their life cycle, such as migratory birds. Wetlands provide valuable production services. Chilika lake produces 12,000 metric tonnes of fish supporting two lakh fishermen; Vembanad lake in Kerala provides livelihood to around 1.6 million people and the East Kolkata wetlands sustain 20,000 under-privileged families. Subsistence farmers currently produce 15000 mt of fish annually and additionally 150 mt of vegetables daily from these wetlands serving as the source of Kolkata’s food security. However, over the last two decades, despite the valuable goods and services being rendered by the wetlands they continue to be degraded or lost at an alarming pace in India. The reason can be traced to the fact that in the past two decades the area covered by the cities has expanded by a staggering 25 per cent, with concrete and asphalt. Projections by the UN indicate that more than 50 per cent of the people will be living in cities by 2050. This massive urbanization will pose a serious threat to the protection of the wetlands because of several anthropogenic factors: Rs i) Pollution — An explosive increase in urban population has occurred without a corresponding expansion of civic facilities such as adequate infrastructure for the disposal of waste. As a result, almost all urban water bodies in India are used for disposing untreated local sewage and solid wastes, resulting in deterioration in the quality of water. ii) Encroachment : As more and more people are migrating to urban areas, the availability of land is becoming scarce . Hence, these urban water bodies are no longer recognized for their ecosystem services but as real estate. Both for governments and the private builders, these water bodies are extremely valuable areas for encroachment. It is disheartening to note that the 26 sites designated as wetlands of international importance in India are plagued by uncontrolled development and illegal encroachment. They include the largest and well known lakes — the freshwater Wular lake in Kashmir, the salt water Sambar lake in Rajasthan and the brackish water Chilika lake in Odisha. Each of them is rapidly shrinking. Pulicat lake, India’s second largest lagoon bordering Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, is threatened by the Dugarajapatnam port project. Kolleru lake, the second largest freshwater lake located in Andhra Pradesh, faces massive anthropogenic pressure. Almost 90 per cent of the lake-bed has been covered by fish tanks, that have turned into a drain. The Vembanad lake, in Kerala, famous for the annual snake boat race is facing the threat of land-use changes and waste dumping.
2015 The Statesman Limited.