India’s Unique Water Purification Wetland Could Soon Become ExtinctBy Manipadma JenaWorld Wetlands Day is on Sunday, Feb. 2. IPS senior corres...
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network
By Manipadma Jena
World Wetlands Day is on Sunday, Feb. 2. IPS senior correspondent Manipadma Jena marks the day by visiting the East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW), a unique wetland that operates as a natural water purification ecosystem.
KOLKATA, India, Jan 31 2020 (IPS) - Ramkumar Mondal’s farm is awash in a brilliant yellow mustard bloom. A flock of grey cranes peck for food amidst the shallow watergrass. But Mondal’s fishpond digs in there like a do-or-die last sentinel as nearby high-rise buildings, a symbol of development and encroachment, menacingly tower over the fishpond, permanently blocking the eastern sun so essential for the pondwater to convert sewage into fish-feed.
Mondal’s fishpond is part of the East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW), spread over 12,500 hectares in coastal West Bengal’s Kolkata city in eastern India that “promotes the world’s largest wastewater-fed aqua culture system,” Shalini Dhyani, a senior scientist at India’s Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR)-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), told IPS.
SOURCE PS NEWS http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/01/indias-unique-water-purification-wetland-soon-become-extinct/ A flock of grey cranes peck for food amidst the shallow watergrass. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS