Restoration of Urban Lakes and Waterbodies

Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in partnership with National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), Ministry of Jal Shakti, Govt. of India conducted a three day residential training on “Restoration of Urban Lakes and Waterbodies” from September 18-20, 2024. The training was conducted, under the CSE-NMCG capacity building initiative on ‘Making Ganga basin studies water-sensitive’.

The training was aimed to capacitate state / municipal functionaries and other sector players on issues, challenges, and management of groundwater in urban areas.

For the training a total of 37 nominations received from across India and attended by 22 participants, all of which were government officials from Urban and rural Local Bodies (ULBs), Jal Nigam, Central Pollution Control Boards, Town planners from town planning departments, NMCG, CPWD, etc.

The training was conducted at CSE’s residential training campus, Anil Agarwal Environment Training Institute (AAETI), Nimli Rajasthan from 18-20 September, 2024. 

The participants were invited to CSE main office, Tughlakabad Institutional Area, Delhi on September 17, 2024, at around 12 noon. The staff from CSE gave a brief introduction to the rainwater harvesting systems and decentralized wastewater management system (DWWTS) followed by the campus visit for live demonstration of the systems. After the lunch at CSE main office, all the participants were taken to the residential training campus, AAETI.

Training Day 1 (September 18, 2024)

The first day of the training started with an icebreaking session, where the participants were welcomed, and a discussion was held on their expectations and challenges on restoration of waterbodies at their respective places. The brainstorming session was conducted by SushmitaSengupta, CSE. Participants attended an online pre-assessment quiz to let them understand what they should expect from the training. It was exciting to see that all the participants attended the quiz with great motivation.

The first formal session of the training was on “Managing Urban Water Bodies – Concept, linkages, Issues and Challenges and CSE studies on identifying the gaps and challenges in the state of Uttar Pradesh” in which SushmitaSengupta, CSE, talked about the issues in management of urban lakes, the basic concepts, how the same is linked with groundwater, storm water, etc. with reference to river cities and the need to restore and revive these lakes. She emphasized how CSE water team took up the data and analysis driven studies in four towns of Uttar Pradesh to help them understand and identify the gaps and challenges to further enable better planning and approach. Next Session was taken up by Swati Bhatia, CSE which talked about how to ensure a proper planning and assessment process of restoration of waterbodies. The session highlighted mistakes done across the states while planning and implementation to rejuvenate the lakes. Only beautification of water bodies will never suffice the purpose. The need is to look beyond into the inflow and outflow of water, bunds, source of water to make it sustainable- involving communities and stakeholders to make the crippled lake ecosystem able enough to thrive and flourish. Alongside activities were taken up which helped participants to enable learn a proper planned project report considering the basics of Lake ecosystem and the science behind lakes to be taken into consideration while rejuvenation.

Post Lunch, Sachin Kumar from Gurujal talked about the technical aspects of the implementation process. The logic behind desilting waterbodies, making proper bunds, and design aspects of nature based systems were taken up to allow treated water enter into waterbodies. He explained the technological and design aspects of bunds, feeder channels, inlet and outlet of the water bodies, etc. 

Training Day 2 (September 19, 2024)

Day 2 started with campus visit of inhouse nature based systems installed at AAETI to make participants understand the live working models. They were also told about the various rainwater harvesting features at the campus

In the second session Mehak Puri, CSE talked on the various existing laws, policies and guidelines on the urban water bodies. She also talked about the importance of these water bodies and how conflicting scenario’s create confusion in ownership of the waterbodies and should be dealt with. She talked about importance of stakeholder interaction and community awareness in the sustainability aspects of any water body restoration, revival and maintainance

Thereafter Pradeep Kumar Mishra, CSE talked the watershed and meteorological features to be taken into consideration during planning the restoration process. He briefed participants how hydrological calculations should be done to understand the inflow and outflow in the catchment areas and how using GIS tools catchment planning can be taken up. He also explained portals like WRIS, BHUVAN which can be used for data collection.

Post lunch participants were taken to the AAETI lab in the campus. During the lab visit they were detailed about various techniques, parameters and aspects on water quality testing by Rajarshi Banerjee, Director, Environment Monitoring Lab, CSE. Post the lab visit Dr. M. Shah Hussain, Scientist Incharge Aravalli Biodiversity Park-DDA talked about the sources of pollution and different quality parameters for lakes and waterbodies connecting the link from Lab learnings.

Thereafter Dr. Aisha Sultana, Field Biologist, Biodiversity Parks Programme, Delhi University talked about various biodiversity indices and the importance of biodiversity in the lake ecosystem. She also talked about various indicator species which present detail the condition of the ecosystem. She also talked about how water sampling should be done and how does it affect the planning aspects.

Mr. Yasir Arafat, Incharge Aravalli Biodiversity Park, DDA took up in detail the innovation and design technicalities behind the restoration of waterbodies through DDA’s NeelaHauz Biodiversity Park case study as the participants would be taken to the site for visit to the same site on the next day. He detailed the entire natural process and science adopted to restore the ecosystem.

Post the sessions it was important to check the learnings of the participants to ensure they take back the learnings to be able to replicate anywhere. So they were given group exercises where they had to use tools to calculate hydrological and biodiversity indices using real time data. They had to present the findings in a group. The best group was awarded the recent compilation on best case studies on water body restoration “Back from the Brink” compiled by CSE 

Training Day 3 (September 20, 2024)

The day 3 of the training was kept for field visit to understand the successful case studies of lake restoration. For this, the visit to NeelaHauz Biodiversity Park was organized by CSE in coordination with Delhi Development Authority (DDA).

The site has been rejuvenated by DDA and has been developed into a biodiversity park. Mr. Yasir Arafat, Incharge Aravalli Biodiversity Park, DDA; explained about the site. He explained that the site was revived using natural ecological and low cost method nature based technologies. The removal of organics and inorganics is observed to a good extent. The revived lake is rich in biodiversity with many species of birds are observed. The lake rejuvenation has really improved the aesthetic, ecological, and environmental quality. There was a fruitful discussion with the participants. He patiently explained all the nuances about funding, technology and planning for the entire process. 

Post the field visit participants were taken to CSE campus where the training was closed with a post assessment quiz and feedback session, followed by lunch.