Despite, and partly because of, the increasing tourist footfall at the iconic Dal Lake, Biba Banoo, a fisherwoman in her mid-sixties, is perturbed. Her son Bilal Ahmed has been unable to catch any fish for three days. “He leaves at around 4 a.m. and returns home with barely 2 kg of common carp. The lake is becoming barren due to the growing pollution and pathos,” says Banoo, who sells the fish in the market, referring to the literal and emotional shrinking.
Banoo and her son are one of the 10,000 indigenous half-amphibious families who row Shikaras on the lake, clean it, cultivate vegetables and fish in the lake for their livelihood. As its waters run out of the indigenous silver fish, these fisherwomen bank on the non-local fish stock, which they buy from the open market. “But it doesn’t attract many consumers in the valley, who are unaware of the impacts of pollution of the lake,” Banoo said.
Dal Lake is the second major surface water body in the valley, after Wular Lake, located in the centre of Srinagar city, surrounded by the Hari Parbat hill and Zabarwan mountains. Over the years, the contours of the lake have changed with the periphery changing into marshy land, and the lake’s aquatic ecosystem changing with growing pollution. The authorities responsible for maintaining the lake say the sewerage and silt going into the lake are impacting the lake’s health and the ecosystem. They say about 400 tonnes of weeds are taken out of the lake every day, and that sewerage treatment plants are working around the lake. The authorities also cleaned 20 navigation channels of the lake, with a total length of around 10 km.
How the lake changed over the years
In June 2023, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) shared satellite images of Wular Lake and Dal Lake (see below) suggesting that the twin water bodies in Kashmir have been shrinking over the years. The accompanying article cites a 2020 paper, by researchers from the National Institute of Technology, Srinagar published in the journal Applied Water Science. However, the Jammu & Kashmir Lake Conservation and Management Authority (LCMA) said the NASA article relies on old visuals. “The 2020 NASA images show the lake full of lilies,” said Bashir Ahmad Bhat, vice chairman of the LCMA. “But we’ve long cleared that vegetation.”
Bhat shared a recent satellite image, showing the lake’s open water expense is 20.37 square kilometres (sq km). In the last three years, he said, the LCMA removed lily vegetation roughly in around 7 sq km and added it to the open water area. “This lily vegetation was overwhelming in a major portion of the lake. Around 20 navigation water channels of Dal Lake have been recently restored,” said Bhat. The Jammu and Kashmir High Court, in an order in 2017, taking note of maps and satellite images available then, has also said that the area of the Dal Lake has remained the same. “In so far as the water/watery surface is concerned, it has not altered much over the years.”
But the contours of the lake have changed over time, as we said, with its periphery turning into marshy lands, which were then given for construction.
Research by authors from the Department of Earth Sciences of the University of Kashmir, and the Indian Space Research Organisation, published in 2017, shows the changing land use and land cover over the lake during the last 155 years. Marshy lands and plantations in the northern part of the lake have vanished as they were given for road construction, and led to significant loss of the lake area during the 1970s, the study says. Dynamic floating aquatic vegetation–that is, lilies, weed, reed, moss and azola vegetation–on the water surface of the lake has tripled, with the consequent reduction of the open water expanse.
The built-up area within the lake has increased more than 40 times during the past 155 years, from 0.05 sq km in 1859, to 2.02 sq km in 2013. “The massive and injudicious urbanisation of the lake interiors, with no provision for the scientific disposal of the household wastes, has adversely affected the quality of the lake waters,” the study says. A 2020 study also shows the built-up increased in the catchment area of the lake–from 20.15 sq km in 1980 to 38.6 sq km in 2018. Similarly, aquatic vegetation increased from 2.03 sq km in 1980 to 5.7 sq km in 2018. Aquatic vegetation, which is not part of the natural ecosystem, uses up oxygen, depriving other living beings–and could result in an area turning into a swamp.
Meanwhile, forest and agriculture in the catchment area of the lake reduced; agriculture reduced from 34.44 sq km in 1980 to 24.10 sq km in 2018, while forest cover reduced from 135.72 sq km in 1980 to 118.30 sq km in 2018. Manzoor Ahmad Shah and Irfan Rashid, researchers associated with Kashmir University, told IndiaSpend that forests were converted for urbanisation. This led to export of nutrients and sediments in the lake which helped the growth of aquatic vegetation, and the lake started shrinking. Silt sedimentation and sewerage have choked the natural springs of the lake, and the water channels from near Zabarwan Hills were choked, which stopped the entry of glacial water into the lake.
The lake’s changing ecosystem
At 52, Gulzar Ahmad Dar from the fisherman colony of Dalgate that houses around 40 families says the entire family has been taking an antiallergen for some days. Allergies are due to increase in aquatic vegetation, and pollution of the lake, which also result in a stink over the lake for months in the summer, and causes a runny nose, sore throat, and itching. Dar is the last fisherman of his family and possibly from his extended clan as well, he says. “My children are quite vocal about the social and survival issues related to fishing…I hardly make a profit of around Rs 400 a day by selling 3 kg of common carp fish, as the lake isn’t offering much,” he said, frowning. “How can my family with seven members survive on Rs 400 a day?”
The common carp was introduced in the Kashmir valley in the mid-twentieth century, and once it thrived in its new habitat, it became the main commercial fish in the market, as per a 2005 study. With human interference, the number of carp in Dal Lake has reduced over time, impacting fisherfolk. “The pollution in the lake first impacted the habitat of fish,” says Irfan Rashid, the researcher from Kashmir University. “Agriculture runoff, detergents and soaps, animal waste, solid waste–plastic bottles and polythene–are contributing to this lake pollution.” Even with reducing fish, there is growing competition on the lake as the fisheries department provided fishing licences to people who are not original inhabitants of the lake.
“This issuance of free licensing is furthering an existential crisis for the community,” Dar says. “Fisheries department would earlier throw the carp fish seeds (offspring of the carp) in the lake, but now they don’t even bother.” An official from the fisheries department, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that their guidelines do not specify that fishing licences are only for original inhabitants of the lake, and that the department has to give 24% more licences each year as it generates revenue. Muneer Ahmad, the Fishing Development Officer in Srinagar, said that though indigenous silver fish is hard to find in the lake, carp is available, and that 3 kg a day for a fisherman is enough. He added that the department continues to throw seeds to the common carp every year.
Dar says the government allows untreated sewage to flow into the lake, which promotes weed growth. “This unwanted vegetation choked the oxygen supply to fish.” Government officials blame the growing organic load–sewage at different locations on the banks, untreated sewage from locals living inside the lake area and on houseboats, kitchen waste, dead fish, and agricultural runoff. “Indigenous fish cannot breed in an artificial water reservoir,” says Muneer Ahmad, an officer in the government fisheries department. “Earlier fishes had an upstream breeding ground in Tailbal Nallah where they used to breed and come back into the lake, but now there is no water passage for the movement of the fish.” (Tailbal or Telbal Nallah is an adjacent water body, separated from Dal Lake by the Foreshore road–built in the 1970s–marking the border of the lake on the northern side.)
Falling vegetable produce
Floating gardens locally known as raad are formed from the weeds collected by the lake dwellers. The weed consists of Typha Augustana and phragmites communis. These floating lands are movable with a length of 10 to 20 feet and three to four feet in breadth. Locals extract weeds along with the roots which contain soil as well. They later convert this into floating or movable gardens, by weaving the weeds together into mats that form the base of the garden. Cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, melons, pumpkins, chillies and brinjals are grown on these gardens. Earlier, vegetable produce from the lake would cater to 50% of Srinagar city’s demand; it now hardly fulfils 5%, vegetable farmers claim.Anthropogenic pressures on lake water and pollution have adversely affected the water quality of the lake, and the population of endemic schizothorax fish, locally known as silver fish, has declined with the destruction of its breeding grounds, as per a 2020 report in the Indian Journal of Extension Education.