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Newsletter and Technical Publications CHAPTER 2. SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ASPECTS OF EUTROPHICATION 2.5. Examples of the History and Culture in Improving the Aquatic Environment 2.5.1. The Indian Scenario The Indian Heritage The total number of natural lakes and small and large reservoirs in India, probably exceeds one million. Many of them are very old and have been in service for over a thousand years. Many of the old lakes, described in the Indian records, were developed during the British rule in India as "Tanks". Some of them attract thousands of visitors on important religious days. Many of them also had a specific economic significance in the past. They have the same importance even today. Because of the fish culture that was systematically developed in many of them, they had the same prestigious status in the socioeconomic set up as the prosperous agricultural lands. This position still continues in much of the eastern parts of India, such as in West Bengal. All these old lakes are now facing new challenges because of the fast changes that are taking place in the society around them. New industrial effluents, chemically active run-off from the agricultural fields, unchecked erosion of hill sides in the watershed by encroachment or deforestation, and city wastes, are causing increased silting and loading of nutrients in the otherwise stable old water bodies, which faired well for a long time in the earlier settings. The Colonial Damage Before the subjugation of the Indian society by foreign invaders and the advent of the colonial rule thereafter, these lakes were traditionally under the direct charge of the local community for management, operation, and repairs. There was direct involvement of the local population through local inputs of cash and in-kind in the construction of the tank itself. There was a feeling of ownership and responsibility for protecting the water body from misuse. During the colonial period, when a myopic view of the financially "remunerative nature" of a public water body was practiced, these lakes were considered "non remunerative" regarding governmental revenue. Therefore they did not qualify for governmental support, which led to neglecting the lakes and associated social structures. In the past, the periodic repairs of the tank used to be carried out with great local fanfare and almost as a community festival with personal participation of village heads and governmental representatives. However, this community spirit slowly gave way under the system of governmental control of all water bodies introduced during the colonial period. That drastically changed the relationship amongst the villagers and also between the villagers and the water bodies on which they depended. The census on the minor irrigation works carried out recently by the government of India and the results published in 1993, have clearly indicated that as many as 50,000 from the total 250,000 water bodies, which were mostly handled earlier by local communities, were disused through neglect. In the surviving old lakes, the self-regulatory mechanism of the villages had slowly withered away. The access ramps to the lake water came to be utilized in an uncontrolled manner for different purposes including bathing, washing, and even for the direct access to water by cattle. Wherever this has happened, it completely destroyed the quality of the lake's water. Phases New Development When India achieved independence in 1947 and construction of many of the new reservoirs was planned, there was not much industrialization in the country. The thrust of the water resources development plans was to provide required additional quantities of water for food production, for generating electricity or for providing a drinking water supply. Water quality was not an issue by itself in the earlier decades after independence. Hence the rules for the planning new reservoirs did not address the issues associated with water quality. It is only in the 1980s that extensive industrialization started after India first achieved its self-sufficiency in the food area. Urbanization processes also received a boost. Consequently, problems of water quality started surfacing at many places in a noticeable manner. Hence, for ensuring good quality of water, compilation of information about the cultural and social attributes of the communities with direct access to the reservoir water and about the activities in the up stream areas of the watershed, had to be made an integral part of the projects management plan. But still, in the current policy of the country on industrial location, emphasis is on the availability of land, water, transport facilities, and other supportive factors. The industrial location is not yet examined from the point of its relationship with a water body. The total reliance is on the effective operation of the Central Water Pollution Control Act. Urbanization that grows around the industries leads to more human wastes and dispersed dry refuse, which ends up in the water body. Therefore the total cumulative and collective impact of establishing an industrial centre will have to be considered hereafter. Siltation of Lakes Excessive siltation of Indian water bodies has been attracting considerable attention. After Independence when India undertook an ambitious programme for the development of water resources, provision for silt pockets in the newly planned reservoirs was made on the basis of data obtained from the European and the American reservoirs. But it was soon realized that the sedimentation rates in the Indian reservoirs were substantially greater than in a cold climate. The intensively ploughed cultivation in the Indian watersheds varies between 0.135 to 1.79%. In lieu of the earlier sedimentation rate of 3.57 ha.m/100 km² per year, i.e., hectare meters (of the volume of sediment received from) per square kilometer (of the watershed) per year, which was adopted in the earlier planning immediately after independence, a more realistic sedimentation rate of 6.52 ha.m in the watershed is an important contributory factor. The annual percentage loss in reservoir capacities is being now adopted uniformly for large, as well as small, reservoirs. Generally, the smaller reservoirs in the plains have shown relatively larger losses in the lake capacities. The silt accumulated in the lakes is rich in nutrients. The earlier village practice was to collect this silt and spread it regularly back on the agricultural land. The silt was also used for local brick making. Thereby, an adversity could be converted into an asset. The lakes got desilted regularly improving their useful live capacities. Under the regulatory regimes of the governmental systems introduced during the colonial period, permissions for such activities had to be sought through a long winding channel of applications and approvals. The lake management was not in the hands of the local communities. Local initiatives thereby got curbed and slowly weathered away. The Anthropological Pressure The Indian population has been rising at a rate of 2.2% annually. The resultant increased pressure on the land has forced the farming community to search for additional cultivatable lands. One easy way was to convert wetlands around the lakes into cultivatable farmlands. Such converted lands are relatively more fertile because of accumulated silt and nutrients. Encroachment on the wetlands around the lakes is very tempting and was even, at times, supported by the officials when the "Grow More Food" campaign was launched in India in the 1950s after Independence to overcome the food shortages and the resultant hunger. Large wetland areas were then drained. The development of new varieties of cereals and other crops, which can withstand stress due to flooding, acted as an additional impetus for utilizing the wetlands as farmlands. In Kashmir, such reclamation practice along the shore lines of the Wular Lake have reduced the size of the lake from 202 km² to only 24 km² during the last four decades. Dal Lake in Kashmir is an urban lake, situated at altitude of 1456 m above the sea level. The lake was 7.44 km long and approximately 3.5 km broad covering an area of 22 km² at the turn of the century. But it has shrunk by now to little over half of its original size, with a total water surface area of only 11.45 km². A sizeable portion thereof is covered by floating islands covering nearly 35% of the lake's spread. The floating islands support vegetation and cultivation, shopping sites, and even hotels, which have a booming business. There have been studies by many investigators of this lake. Their results indicate that eutrophication in this lake is relatively very recent over the past 30 years, coinciding with a marked increase in human activities in the lake's watershed. As a result of heavy anthropogenic pressures, the lake is not only shrinking in surface area, but its waters have also become heavily polluted posing health hazards. One of the compelling social factors for transgressing the traditional safe distance from the lakes shore, has been the uncontrolled expansion of the town through the immigration of employment seeking village people to come to the town. Because of easy access to water, the migrant people tend to settle close to the banks of the lake and compound the problem of water quality by unsanitary living conditions in, and around their poor hamlets. Poverty is a great adversary of clean water. Further, the growing scarcity of municipal land, that can be assigned to the public purpose for accommodating the city refuse, has forced some of the municipalities to choose lands in and around the water body for dumping municipal wastes. The presence of lakes could not be happily woven into the modern city layouts because of increasing pressure on land, and the high costs of managing a clean surface water body when surrounded by urban sprawls. Indian cities, such as Indore, Bangalore, and Delhi, have all seen the progressive disappearance of the small lakes from their neighbourhood and from within the expanding municipal limits as the cities grew in the last fifty years. (continued)
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