Management of Lakes in India - World Lakes Website.pdfVIP

10 March 2004 Management of Lakes in India 1 2 M.S.Reddy and N.V.V.Char 1. Introduction There is no specific definition for Lakes in India. The word “Lake” is used loosely to describe many types of water bodies – natural, manmade and ephemeral including wetlands. Many of them are euphemistically called Lakes more by convention and a desire to be grandiose rather than by application of an accepted definition. Vice versa, many lakes are categorized as wetlands while reporting under Ramsar Convention. India abounds in water bodies, a preponderance of them manmade, typical of the tropics. The manmade (artificial) water bodies are generally called Reservoirs, Ponds and Tanks though it is not unusual for some of them to be referred to as lakes. Ponds and tanks are small in size compared to lakes and reservoirs. While it is difficult to date the natural lakes, most of the manmade water bodies like Ponds and Tanks are historical. The large reservoirs are all of recent origin. All of them, without exception, have suffered environmental degradation. Only the degree of degradation differs. The degradation itself is a result of lack of public awareness and governmental indifference. The situation is changing but slowly. Environmental activism and legal interventions have put sustainability of lakes in the vanguard of environmental issues. This paper is an attempt at presenting a comprehensive view of the typical problems experienced in the better known lakes, their present environmental status and efforts being made to make them environmentally sustainable. 1.1 Data India is well known for the huge variance in its lakes, but the data is nebulous. There is no orderly or scientific census of lakes. Though there is a distincti