Kashmir floods - a story of destroyed ecology

The ravaging Kashmir floods have another story to tell --- devastation of local ecology and natural water system by unplanned development for political reasons. Half of the Srinagar's water-bodies have been lost and the natural linkages waterways cease to exist.

Updated on: Sep 16, 2014, 20:31:43 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The ravaging Kashmir floods have another story to tell --- devastation of local ecology and natural water system by unplanned development for political reasons. Half of the Srinagar's water-bodies have been lost and the natural linkages waterways cease to exist.

A research paper by Humayan Rashid and Gowhar Naseem of Jammu and Kashmir Remote Sensing Centre found that over 9,000 hectares of water bodies and marshy land was lost due to encroachment and unplanned development between 1911 and 2004.

In 1911, around 13,425 hectares of land was marshy and 4,000 hectares was occupied by water-bodies. A stark change was visible in 2004 with marshy land being just 6,407 hectares and water-bodies occupying 3,065 hectares. The land lost was taken over by infrastructure including roads and buildings very close to river Jhelum, which had caused massive floods in Srinagar valley last week.

The study based on comparison of satellite mapping of 2004 with the ground study in 1911 said the expansion of the city had not only been at the cost of productive crop land and orchard but at a large number of water-bodies and marshy land.

Except Dal, all other lakes in the city are degraded, the study said. A Comptroller and Auditor General's report said that Dal's lake water area is half of its original because of pollution and encroachment. Half of 314 square kms of catchment area of Dal lake is prone to soil erosion because of loss in the forest cover.

Rashid and Naseem's study presented at World Lake Conference in 2008 also said that the city of Srinagar was facing problem of drainage as these lakes used to act as sponges for floods. With most of them vanishing, the city was facing problems of floods from rainfall for three or four days because of excess water flow in river Jhelum.

Loss of water bodies had its bearing on local micro-climate with the mean temperature in summers rising to 39.5 degree Celsius in 2006 as compared to 35.5 degree Celsius in 1973, the study said.

"Srinagar has lost all but one water body and it has been because of some ill-advised urban planning," said Salim Beigh, member of the National Monument Authority at a seminar in Press Club of India. "The government needs to restore the flood plains and rejuvenate water ways to act as cushions for floods".

That's not all.

The Kashmir region had recorded a huge loss of forest since 1992. Comparison of forest survey reports for the period show that the valley lost about 10% of its dense forest cover during the period indicating that ability of forests to retain water has been reduced. It meant more rain water flowed directly into Jhelum river causing flooding.

In 1992, the weather department's report showed that there was almost same amount of rainfall but the water quantity in Jhelum river was about 30,000 cusecs less.

And it was primarily because of better quality forests and water channels to remove excess water from the river, experts said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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