Kerala - Kozhikode   

Experts pick holes in water policy

Kozhikode: Kerala being a coastal state with more than 400 km of coastline, importance of coastal wetlands is high for the State, said speakers at a discussion here on Saturday. As the transitional region between the oceanic and terrestrial environments, the coastal wetlands have a unique biodiversity, which needs to be studied in more detail, they said.

Scientists and researchers participated in the discussion held under the remote sensing cell of the Centre for Water Resources Development and Management to mark World Wetlands Day.

M.R. Venugopal, who is working on applications of remote sensing and geomatics in natural resources management, led the discussions. Girish Gopinath, M. Pragath, Sanjith and Savitha, scientists and researchers, participated.

On the draft water policy of Kerala, the discussion said it was found lacking in certain respects. Care should be taken to give emphasis to the use of tools provided by science and technology, such as satellites, for monitoring the health of the wetlands. Legal measures to prevent mismanagement had to be introduced.

The experts said the role of wetlands in keeping global processes and cycles, most of them driven by solar energy and involving movement of water, gases and other geo-chemicals, had not been fully understood, especially in the context of humid tropics (such as Kerala). This called for a more focussed research in associated sciences, such as ecology, biology, chemistry, geology and hydrology.

They said continuously monitoring and investigating these processes were must. Modern observation techniques, such as satellite remote sensing for earth resources monitoring and studies, were useful.

The theme of this year’s World Wetlands Day, “Healthy wetlands, healthy people,” they said, concerns itself with another aspect of the ecosystem services of the wetlands: if the wetlands are not properly managed, they can have highly adverse impacts on public health. This underlines the importance of management strategies. The costs of poor management can be high — wetland-related diseases, for example, claim the lives of more than 3 million people every year globally and bring suffering to many more.

February 2 has been observed as World Wetlands Day since 1997. It marks the important role wetlands play in maintaining life on Earth. The functions of wetlands in regulating flash floods, breaking down poisonous pollutants into simple and harmless entities and acting as buffer against the ingress of the sea are well known. Among the wetlands, coastal ones do a remarkable job as a haven for mangroves, home to a variety of flora and fauna.

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