Wetland Governance in the Age of Climate Change

In the age of climate change and disasters, wetlands and lakes hold a significantly important position, even in urban areas. They create a natural mechanism to control the impacts of storm water run-off from rooftops, parking lots and roads by removing suspended solids and also control the level of phosphorous because of the presence of biofilms which increases the efficiency of the natural pollution management in the aquatic system.

India is a relatively progressing country in terms of wetland management, while it is facing severe challenges in maintaining this fragile ecosystem, having already lost one third of its wetlands. Rapid and uncontrolled urban expansion has led to imbalances in the water system which has disrupted not only the vegetation cycle but also brought huge damage to the wetland natural ecosystem and weakened the absorption capacity of the land.  As a result, drains have been choked leading to the frequent water logging in most parts of the cities, especially during the monsoon season.

Such decline in wetlands could actually result in a disequilibrium in the natural food chain, thereby impacting not only the natural vegetation and environment, but also the fragile urban ecosystem which is largely dependent on the former. Therefore, urban wetland governance must be a part of the planning process which should adopt the principle of judicious urban land use thereby creating a safe and resilient urban environment.

The paper will present the biggest challenges of wetland governance in contemporary India and provide comparison with similar current issues in the Central European countries.

Mukunda Upadhyay is with the Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is currently finishing his PhD project “Migration and Urban Spaces: Exploring the Dynamics of Nepali and Bengali Migration in Assam”, focusing on the components like settlement history in urban areas by migrants, process of place making, intergenerational livelihood, negotiation of urban spatiality and identity formation in urban Assam. He works in Oxfam India as Programme Officer for disaster risk reduction activities in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, and is also responsible for the implementation of the SIDA funded TROSA (Transboundary Rivers of South Asia) project in Uttar Pradesh working in collaboration with Indian partners and OXFAM Nepal.

The seminar is organized within the Research Program "Global Conflicts and Local Interactions" Strategy AV21.

Seminar will be held in English. No registration is needed.