Save wetlands or face floods: Expert

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, June 6

Wetlands located in vicinity of the Jhelum river in Kashmir have acted as reservoirs to accommodate surplus rain water in the region. However, they are shrinking and creating a threat of recurrent floods in future, a leading expert has warned.

Shakil Ahmad Romshoo, head of the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Kashmir, said his recent survey had found that 55 sq km area of wetlands had been lost over the past four decades. He described it as a “significant loss” which could become a cause of recurrent flooding if the trend was not reversed.

“In the Jhelum flood plain, we have lost almost 55 sq km of wetland in about 44 years from 1972 until now. It is a very significant loss,” Romshoo told The Tribune. He said some of erstwhile wetlands had turned into residential neighbourhoods.

The Jhelum flood plain is the area on both sides of the river that stretches from south Kashmir’s Anantnag district to north Kashmir’s Bandipora district and includes parts of Srinagar district. This area has been prone to flooding.

Romshoo said a side effect of the increased loss of the wetlands will be “storm water run-offs”, that is, more incidents of waterlogging by precipitation, and recurrent floods “because water will have nowhere to go.”

Kashmir region witnessed a devastating flood in September, 2014, which marooned residential and commercial neighbourhoods in the city. One of the factors blamed for the flood has been identified as increased conversion of wetlands in the region.

According to 2010 National Wetland Atlas of Union Ministry of Environment and Forest, 78 mapped wetlands and 23 small wetlands in Srinagar are spread over 10,081 hectares. The dominant type of wetland in the district are riverine wetlands, which number 25 and make 54 per cent of the total area. This is followed by 14 lakes and ponds contributing to around 22 per cent of the total wetland area in Srinagar.

In the past four decades, Romshoo said, 21 wetlands had been lost in and around Srinagar city and most of them had been converted into residential colonies. “If we could have restored the natural capacity of these wetlands, the flooding problem would not have been as worse,” he said.