Wetlands for a Sustainable Urban Future: Insights from Pondicherry, South India

Raphaël Mathevet,Anbarashan Munisamy,Simon Targowla,Venkatasubramanian Govindan,Nicolas Bautès,Ayyappan Narayanan

doi:10.33002/nr2581.6853.03045

Abstract

Wetland ecosystems hold an important part of the world’s biodiversity and are complex social-ecological systems. Aiming to understand interdependencies among their components and to define management policies, the social-ecological trajectory of Oussudu lake – a wetland of Pondicherry region in South India – was reconstructed and analysed. During the last decades, this wetland has transformed from an irrigation tank to a lake to cater biodiversity conservation and recreation. The environmental history highlights a governance change that has contributed to “black boxing” the wetland’s functional environment and to conceal major water issues at regional and local levels. This study emphasizes the importance of implementing an approach that combines the management of this urban lake commons with a multi-scalar, socio-ecological and multi-stakeholder analysis. A trade-off on the seasonal water regime between different users - including fauna and flora - has to be found.

Highlights

Hosting a tremendous diversity of landscapes, habitats and species, wetlands are among the most valuable, fragile and productive ecosystems on Earth (Moore, 2006; Ghermandi et al, 2010; Russi et al, 2012)
By narrating the history of Oussudu wetland, analysis details out the emergence of a conservation landscape and how social-ecological dynamics have changed over time
The necessity of a holistic approach at the watershed level taking into consideration a functional wetland including wildlife habitats, hydrological cycles and social dynamics is affirmed by many scientists (Abbasi, 1997; Prusty et al, 2011; Bassi and Kumar, 2012; Kumar, 2013)

Summary

Introduction

Hosting a tremendous diversity of landscapes, habitats and species, wetlands are among the most valuable, fragile and productive ecosystems on Earth (Moore, 2006; Ghermandi et al, 2010; Russi et al, 2012). Generalised corruption and lack of means for action are often designated as the main causes of failures in conservation programmes worldwide (Smith et al, 2003; Doshi and Ranganathan, 2017). In this context, this article focuses on the construction of issues related to the conservation and management of wetlands and conflicts related to the development of protected areas (bird sanctuaries) in South India

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Discussion

Conclusion