An indispensable ecosystem

Wetlands play a crucial role in making the cities and towns livable by helping in groundwater recharge, buffering floods, filtering wastewater, regulating microclimate, enhancing landscapes etc. A rapid assessment by our team indicates that nearly eight per cent of the total wetland area is situated within the urban sprawls.

Wetlands have played an important role in shaping the settlement patterns across India. The water storage in Yamuna floodplains has been estimated to be equivalent to three-fourths of Delhi's water supply. In the waste recycling system of East Kolkata, Wetlands treat nearly 65 per cent of the city's wastewater, saving nearly Rs 4,600 million annually. Wetlands act as major flood defence systems for cities such as Srinagar and Guwahati. In the Deccan plains and arid regions of the country, there has been an age-old tradition of constructing tanks to store rainwater for irrigation and domestic use.

Urban wetlands are also significant cultural and recreational avenues. The backwaters of Kerala are visited by over 0.3 million tourists annually, generating an annual economy of Rs 600 crore. Urban wetlands also harbour diverse plant and animal life.

While built-up spaces within urban areas have increased, the wetland areas have undergone a drastic decline. Our analysis of data from 76 cities and towns has indicated that during 1980-2015, while the built-up area increased by 285 per cent, wetlands declined by 21 per cent; the most rapid loss was in the metros.

Increasing vulnerability

With wetlands being lost in urban areas, and extreme climate events being the new normal, pluvial floods are on the rise. As floodwater tends to accumulate in low lying areas, infrastructure built on wetland areas and feeder channels become exposed to flooding risks. This has been evidenced in several cases, such as the Kashmir deluge of September 2014, Chennai floods of November-December 2015, the Kerala floods of August 2018, and floods in Gurgaon and Hyderabad in 2020.

The lack of wetland buffer was identified as a significant causative factor for the extensive damage during the floods of November-December 2015. In August 2018, when Kerala faced unprecedented floods, the lowland areas suffered maximum damage. Unfortunately, reconstruction efforts post the floods have not considered restoration of wetlands and its feeder channels as a recovery measure.

Limited public policy response

MoEF&CC is the nodal organization in the country for issues related to wetlands. With India becoming a party to the Ramsar Convention in 1982, and MoEF&CC being established in 1985, a national programming framework for wetlands was put in place as early as in 1986. Presently, the network of wetlands supported by the Ministry under various schemes includes 250 sites. India has also designated 46 wetlands as Ramsar sites, of which as many as eight are located within urban and peri-urban spaces.

The Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017, constitutes wetlands authorities within states and union territories as a nodal institution for policy, programming and regulation of wetlands. However, with human-made wetlands excluded from the category of wetlands that can be notified under these rules, most of the wetlands of the urban areas in the Deccan region are excluded.

Continued degradation of wetlands underline ineffectiveness of existing measures and highlight the need to ramp up efforts across multiple sectors.

Wetlands are often managed with singular sectoral approaches – such as for recreation and amenity values, fisheries, and water storage. This prevents the incorporation of their full range of ecosystem services and biodiversity values and connectivity within the landscape within management interventions. The complex drivers of wetlands degradation cannot be addressed by piecemeal sectoral approaches

The dominant urban planning approaches in India thus far have been infrastructure dominated, enabling tapping upstream sources for meeting water needs and sending waste and run-off to downstream reaches in the shortest possible time. The limitations of such approaches are evident in cities being increasingly parched, exposed to floods and droughts, and increasingly water insecure. Management of wetlands located within the boundary of urban areas is often missed out within these approaches.

Lessons from other cities

The Sponge Cities model, adopted in several Chinese cities have replaced cemented pavements with wetlands, as an eco-friendly alternative to traditional flood defences and drainage systems. The Văcărești Nature Park, a 183-hectare urban wetland of Bucharest, Romania's largest and most densely populated city, provides a green lung to the built-up city surrounding the site. Located on the edge of Vientiane, the That Luang Marsh, spanning across 2,000 hectares, is being preserved and managed as a buffer against flooding and a provider of livelihoods.

In the Banten Bay area of Jakarta, a consortium of environmental organisations, including Wetlands International, are using wetlands as natural infrastructure solutions to prevent coastal erosion. The Room for the River Programme of the Netherlands and Germany is an ambitious river restoration programme, which includes rejuvenating floodplains and the creation of additional wetland habitats to buffer the urban areas from flooding and risk of a dyke collapse. Several other cases from around the globe indicate how wetlands conservation could be weaved into urban planning, contributing to twin objectives of conservation as well as sustainable urbanization.

Ways ahead

The future of urban wetlands is closely linked to the extent to which these ecosystems are integrated within the urban development scenario.

Firstly, the national wetlands inventory needs to be updated at least once every decade so that the trends in these ecosystems are known.

Secondly, recording wetlands as a separate land-use class can be instrumental in thwarting the threats of wetlands encroachment and conversion.

Thirdly, urban wetlands need to be delineated and managed in an integrated manner, with due consideration of their ecological, hydrological and socioeconomic features and factors governing these features. Periodic capacity development programmes may be conducted for central and state government officials entrusted with the integrated management of wetlands.

Fourthly, urban wetlands need to be properly delineated and notified under extant regulations. The State Wetlands Authorities need to prioritize conservation of urban wetlands, using a catchment approach and securing the full range of their ecosystem services and biodiversity values within sectoral planning.

Fifthly, urban local bodies, resident welfare committees and civil societies should be meaningfully engaged in the management and restoration of urban wetlands. This could be done through sensitization, behavioural change communication, education and awareness campaigns, and the use of citizen science for monitoring and involvement in management planning processes.

Views expressed are personal