On 25 Could this yr, a lot of useless fish have been discovered floating in Dal Lake in Srinagar, the summer time capital of Jammu & Kashmir. In a video circulated on social media, an area resident stands beside the lake, peppered with useless fish, and says: “The sewage of many elements of the town goes straight into the lake. The pungent odor from the water provides a detrimental impression of the lake to the vacationers.”
The incident occurred simply after India concluded internet hosting of a G20 assembly about tourism on the banks of the lake. Delegates have been taken for rides on boats often known as shikara by means of the three-day summit. Within the first week of Could, the Lake Conservation and Administration Authority (LCMA), a authorities authority chargeable for administration and conservation of water our bodies in Jammu & Kashmir, had carried out an intensive operation to take away algae and weeds from the lake.
The Fisheries Division of Jammu & Kashmir seemed into the fish deaths with the assistance of Sher-e-Kashmir College of Agricultural Sciences and Expertise (SKUAST). Its report, launched on 26 Could and seen by The Third Pole, blamed a mix of things which had lowered oxygen ranges within the lake, together with “thermal stratification”; a ten˚C rise in temperature introduced on by the onset of spring; and “low photosynthesis” attributable to cloudy and wet days.
It additionally notes: “Furthermore oxygen will get additional low [sic] by the rains as they convey extra pollution/natural load by the run-off from throughout the catchment areas including much more natural load for the microorganisms to interrupt down by consuming the oxygen within the water physique/lake.”
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Round 50,000 individuals are dwelling within the interiors of the lake and round 5 lakh [500,000] individuals are residing within the catchment [area] of the lake. So you possibly can think about the stress on it. We gather 10 tonnes of stable waste per day from Dal Lake.
Irfan Rashid, researcher, College of Kashmir
Feroz Ahmad Bhat, dean of the School of Fisheries at SKUAST, explains that decomposition of a big ‘natural load’ in a lake – biodegradable matter that may embody weeds, sewage, agricultural waste and fertilisers – can expend numerous the oxygen within the water, inflicting fish to die attributable to lack of oxygen.
The fisheries division report concludes: “The folks residing within the peripheries of Dal Lake want to not panic as it’s a pure phenomenon.”
Not an remoted incident
Could’s mass fish loss of life in Dal Lake was not an remoted occasion: Kashmir has witnessed a number of incidents of mass fish mortality lately. In August 2012, a lot of fish died in Srinagar’s Nigeen Lake, which is linked to Dal Lake by a slender strait. The Jammu & Kashmir fisheries division blamed a drop in oxygen ranges and variations in water temperature.
In October 2017, hundreds of fish have been discovered floating on the Jhelum River in Srinagar and washed ashore on its banks, with officers suggesting this was brought on by low oxygen ranges. Then in July 2022, quite a few useless fish have been found within the Fashkoori Wetland, located throughout the Pampore space of South Kashmir’s Pulwama district. In keeping with officers, an evaluation of the wetland’s water revealed elevated ranges of phosphate and ammoniacal nitrate, that are utilized in fertilisers.
The frequency of mass fish loss of life incidents appears to be rising, in keeping with Irfan Rashid, assistant professor on the College of Kashmir’s Division of Geoinformatics, who has carried out in depth analysis on the problem in Kashmir. Rashid blames “chemical contamination” and untreated sewage getting into water our bodies, in addition to blooms of cyanobacteria and use of electrical shocks to catch fish, as the principle causes.
Eutrophication of Kashmir’s water our bodies
‘Eutrophication’ refers to a course of by which a water physique turns into ‘enriched’ with vitamins reminiscent of phosphorus and nitrogen. Human actions – together with the dumping of sewage and use of fertiliser on close by farmland, which is then washed into waterways by rain – can result in unnaturally giant portions of those vitamins getting into lakes and rivers. This in flip promotes development of aquatic flora reminiscent of pond weed, algae and phytoplankton (microscopic crops), which expend the oxygen within the water.
Climatic components reminiscent of temperature can speed up the replica of phytoplankton, inflicting a dip in oxygen ranges. Nonetheless, research have additionally discovered that the water high quality in Dal Lake has fallen steeply in current many years attributable to human exercise.
A 2022 paper discovered that charges of dissolved oxygen within the lake have fallen drastically within the final 40 years, whereas the presence of phosphates and nitrates has elevated, attributable to “discharge of untreated sewage, agricultural runoff and sediments from adjoining catchments”. An evaluation of the lake’s water in 2022 concluded that “Dal Lake is present process speedy eutrophication (attributable to anthropogenic disturbances)”.
Sources of this air pollution embody the roughly 1,200 houseboats on Dal Lake, from which it has been estimated that round 9,000 tonnes of waste enter the water yearly. There are additionally 15 main drains from Srinagar that carry sewage into the lake.
In a bid to cope with air pollution from the houseboats, Bashir Ahmad Bhat, vice chair of the LCMA, says that the federal government has launched a Floating Sewage Community on Dal Lake to forestall the movement of untreated effluents into the water physique from houseboats. The mission, which began earlier this yr, entails gathering sewage from the boats and pumping it to therapy crops.
Questions over efficient air pollution controls
Bhat says that authorities are making steady efforts to make sure the lake is pollution- and sewage-free. “We’ve put in sewage therapy crops [STPs] within the lake and all of the houseboats are linked. The lodges across the lake are already linked with STPs,” Bhat tells The Third Pole.
But, in 2020, a panel of specialists uncovered that 70 per cent of Srinagar’s sewage flows straight into Dal Lake by means of main drains. Moreover, they decided that STPs have been being excessively used and poorly maintained, leading to effluent high quality considerably beneath the stipulated requirements set by the Central Air pollution Management Board.
Irfan Rashid from the College of Kashmir says that tonnes of untreated sewage nonetheless enter the water our bodies of the Kashmir Valley each week, leading to depletion of oxygen within the water. “Dal Lake is probably the most extensively managed water physique of the valley, however the efficacy of put in sewage therapy crops has been debatable,” Rashid says.
Bhat of the LCMA acknowledges that Dal Lake is in a state of eutrophication. “There isn’t any doubt about that however we’ll attempt to maintain it underneath management and cease it additional,” he says. “We’re taking each potential conservation measure for Dal Lake,” he says. The federal government has said that from 2018 to 2022, it spent INR 2.39 billion (USD 28.7 million) on the conservation of Dal Lake.
“Round 50,000 individuals are dwelling within the interiors of the lake and round 5 lakh [500,000] individuals are residing within the catchment [area] of the lake. So you possibly can think about the stress on it,” he says. “We gather 10 tonnes of stable waste per day from Dal Lake.”
Nonetheless, activists say that efforts up to now are removed from ample. “The inhabitants and air pollution within the Lake are rising daily. The lake could be restored however wants will and conviction,” says environmental activist Raja Muzafar Bhat. “This [current state of affairs] is a transparent violation of Water Prevention and Management of Air pollution Act 1974.”
This story was printed with permission from The Third Pole.
