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| 50 percent wetlands lost, 10 percent forest cover goes missing, Urbanisation three times more than growth of population | | Political greed brings Kashmir closer to another catastrophe! | | Syed Junaid Hashmi
Early Times Report
JAMMU, Dec 30: After recent disastrous floods, another natural catastrophe awaits Kashmir valley which has lost much of its forests and lakes to the greed of ruling political dispensations.
The ruling class has cared little and allowed devastation of the natural resources across the Kashmir valley at an alarming pace during the last 100 years. Nature has bestowed a vast network of wetlands and waterways locally called "Dembs" to the Srinagar city which acted as sponges during the floods and shared the Jhelum waters, but during the last few decades due to rapid and unchecked urbanization, these wetlands and water ways were converted in to built-up.
Also, not much attention was given towards de-silting of existing flood spill channels. Wetlands in Kashmir valley have lost their water absorption capacity due to excessive siltation and encroachments, thus decreasing the chances to provide assistance during floods. Wetlands including Hokersar, Haigam and Shalabugh, considered as natural sponges in times of floods have been converted into "agriculture and built-up" over the past two decades.
This has worsened the flood susceptibility. These revelations have been made by Department of Environment, Ecology and Remote Sensing of Jammu and Kashmir in its report titled "A Satellite Based Rapid Assessment on Floods in Jammu & Kashmir-September, 2014." The assessment was coordinated by Chairman of SPCB Suresh Chug. Referring to research by Humayan Rashid and Gowhar Naseem of Jammu and Kashmir Remote Sensing Centre, the assessment report maintain that the study has revealed loss of nearly 50% of the wetlands over the period of 100 years.
In 1911, the total extent of water bodies with marshy areas was 356.85 km. However, it has reduced to 158.54 km in 2011. Also it was revealed 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, 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. 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.
Most of the housing colonies built in the floodplains of Jhelum and along the Jhelum river course stand regularized by the successive governments and thus, encouraging the conversion of the remaining wetlands in the vicinity of the Srinagar and elsewhere to built-up enclosures. The built-up area computed from temporal data for Srinagar City indicated that area under built-up in 1972, 1982, 1992 and 2004 was 18.10, 27.23, 41.80 and 84.50 km respectively. Thus over the years the amount of built-up land has grown by about 29.20 percent, nearly three times the rate of population growth. Results also revealed that area under agriculture has drastically reduced by 11.65% followed by the plantation 8.35% and wetlands and water bodies by about 3.77 and 1.49% respectively.
Another study by the DEERS within the 10km buffer of Srinagar, the land use has changed by about 30 percent. Study identified around 43 priority wetlands and water bodies that were analyzed from 1964 toposheets and compared with satellite images of 2012, which showed significant reduction in the extent of wetlands and their land use changing to built-up and agriculture.
Report further says that vulnerability assessment at local government level is often lacking. Most areas of the Asian region lack sufficient observational records to draw conclusions about trends in annual rainfall over the past century. History bears powerful testimony to the fact that in Srinagar city many flood spill channels were dug during the reign of various kings, maharajas, administrators in the past. |
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