WETLANDS MATTER: The Life Blood of Kashmir
The wetlands, locally known as ‘demb’, appear timeless on Kashmiri winter mornings when mist gently lifts from the water and the first calls of migratory birds ripple across the sky. Beneath this beauty, however, is a silent crisis. The marshes, lakes, and floodplains that formerly characterized the Valley’s ecological rhythm are contracting, choking, and, in many cases, vanishing often without protest and occasionally without notice.
Kashmir’s wetlands are not merely stretches of water. They are living systems that breathe with the seasons from the vast expanse of Wular Lake to the reed-filled sanctuaries of Hokersar, Shallabugh and Mirgund, from the urban pulse of Dal to the calm waters of Manasbal. Together, they form the ecological spine of the Valley.
World is facing serious climate crises and the soil present in wetlands hold the maximum amount of carbon, the wetlands can help to fight against the climate change and no longer can we afford to lose them.
Why Wetlands of Kashmir matter?
Today, when our planet faces the worst environmental crisis, wetlands prove to be small patches of resilient fighters. Wetland ecosystems have the ability to maintain air quality by extracting aerosols and chemical compounds from the atmosphere and their biologically mediated processes stabilize the micro-climate of the valley.
Being ecotones (transitional land between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem), Kashmir’s wetlands support a rich and fragile web of life, shaped by cold climate, seasonal flooding, and nutrient-rich waters fed by snowmelt from the Himalayas. They help in local climate regulation, carbon sequestration, flood mitigation and water purification.
Aquatic plants like Pondweeds, Hornwort and Water milfoil are submerged species vital for oxygenation and fish habitat. They also stabilise sediments and provide breeding grounds for fish and invertebrates. Common reed, Cattail, Bulrush and Sedges are some emergent marshy vegetation that act as natural flood buffers, nesting sites for birds and a source of livelihood like mat-making and thatching.
Kashmir wetlands are part of the Central Asian Flyway, hosting thousands of migratory birds each winter like Bar-headed geese, Northern Pintail, Mallard, Common Teal, Gadwall etc. that attract photographers and wildlife enthusiasts from across India and globe. Resident Birds like Common Coot, Little Grebe, Moorhen, and White-breasted Water hen, Purple Heron, Great Egret and Black-crowned Night Heron present a pleasing site to local bird watchers throughout the year.
Local communities find raw materials from the wetlands to produce sustainable traditional handicrafts like reed mats (Wagu) which provide warmth in the harsh Kashmiri winters. Willows that are commonly found around Dal Lake, Wular Lake, Hokersar and other wetlands, are used to make cricket bats, Kangri, wicker and also as fuel wood. Fish, Lotus stems (nadru), water chestnuts (gaaer), and other aquatic plants from wetlands feed local markets sustaining both nutrition and income.
Kashmir’s wetlands are not only ecological and economic spaces, but also emotional, cultural, and artistic landscapes. Mentions of pamposh (lotus), shikara and reeds often find place in local folk poetry to invoke imagination and symbolism. “Pamposh chuy phoolan andar phool” (The lotus is the flower among flowers), this line, recurring in folk imagination, celebrates both beauty and resilience, a metaphor deeply rooted in wetland ecology. Traditional crafts like Papier-mâché, wood carving, shawls and carpets often reflect patterns inspired from mashes like lotus, water birds, willow trees etc. Wetlands also shape culinary art, nadru (lotus stem) dishes; Architecture-Houseboats and lakeside wooden homes; Music-Songs timed with seasonal water cycles and also Language -Metaphors drawn from water, change, and stillness.
However, the valley’s wetlands have found themselves to be at the top of a downward hill.
The Quiet Siege on Kashmir’s Wetlands
The loss of wetlands in Kashmir is not the consequence of a single, catastrophic event. It is a gradual, nearly undetectable siege that is carried out day by day, brick by brick, pipe by pipe, until living waters are reduced to diminishing shadows of their former selves.
Encroachment is frequently the initial attack along the edges of lakes and marshes. A reed bed patch turns into a landfill. A temporary shed is created from a landfill. A shed is transformed into a concrete house. Soon after, the once-breathing wetland becomes just another unidentified area of land that has been taken from the natural world. Because it occurs quietly, the loss is rarely noticed, but the total harm is enormous.
The poisoning of the waters is another big threat posed to the wetlands that include untreated sewage, household waste and agricultural chemicals runoff flow into wetlands that were never meant to bear such loads. All these factors contribute significantly to the destruction of wetlands.
From the hills above, silt drifts down year after year. Forest deforestation, road cutting and unregulated construction loosen the soil, which rains carry straight into lakes and marshes. Wetlands grow shallower, warmer, and less capable of supporting life. Where boats once floated, reeds now stand dry, a warning written in mud for those who read.
Even love for nature, when unmanaged, becomes a burden. Unregulated tourism brings crowds, noise, plastic and fuel spills. The birds that once trusted these waters begin to keep their distance. The wetlands remain, but their wildness quietly slips away. The situation of Dal lake Srinagar is quite devastated by the plastic pollution it has to deal with. Wetlands are fragile ecosystems and cannot bear such irresponsible and unethical human behaviour.
Another contributing factor is climate change, altering rhythms older than memory. Winters grow uncertain. There is no snowfall in the prime winter period and melts too quickly or too little. Rains fall when wetlands are unprepared to hold them. The delicate balance between flood and flow, once maintained by marshes and floodplains, is breaking down.
And perhaps the most dangerous threat of all is misconception. The idea that wetlands are wastelands. That they exist only to be drained, filled, built upon or “developed”. That their silence means they do not matter. But wetlands do not shout when they are hurt. They retreat. They shrink. They fade. And by the time the loss becomes visible in floods, in dying fisheries, in vanishing birds, the damage is already deep.
A Flashing Red Light: Urgency to conserve them
This winter, the warning became impossible to ignore. By December, parts of Shallabugh and Mirgund wetlands no longer looked like wetlands at all. What should have been shallow, life-filled waters had hardened into dry slowly transforming into patches of grassland where reeds and aquatic plants once stood in standing water. From a distance, the change almost appeared harmless, even green, and even pastoral. But this greening was deceptive. It marked not renewal, but retreat. For migratory birds arriving after long journeys, the message was cruelly clear: some of Kashmir’s traditional refuges are no longer guaranteed to be there when they are needed most.
Kashmir’s wetlands risk ecological collapse when their channels, marshes, and floodplains are destroyed, much like the Aral Sea, once the fourth-largest inland water body in the world, which today stands as one of the worst ecological disasters caused by human neglect. The excessive diversion of its feeding rivers for irrigation led to rapid shrinkage, transforming vast stretches of water into barren desert.
Naal-e-Mar, once one of the most significant urban water channels and wetlands of Srinagar, connecting Khushalsar and Gilsar lakes with other water bodies and ultimately the River Jhelum, played a crucial ecological, hydrological, and socio-cultural role in the city’s life. However, from the mid-20th century onwards, Naal-e-Mar faced rapid degradation. Today, Naal-e-Mar stands as a stark example of how unplanned urbanisation and neglect can erase vital wetland ecosystems.
Similarly, Once a 19.54 km2 (during 1893–1894) pristine water lake, Anchar is now shrunken to just 4.26 km2 (2017). Wular Lake, one of the largest and deepest freshwater lakes in South Asia, Once covering an extensive area of approximately 20,000 hectares, has significantly reduced in size to around 2,400 hectares. The 2014 Srinagar floods showed how the loss and blockage of wetlands and water channels reduced the city’s capacity to absorb excess water. Degraded wetlands in Kashmir have turned heavy rainfall into disaster, highlighting the urgent need for conservation.
A Choice that cannot Wait
The wetlands of Kashmir still breathe, the winter birds still arrive, and reeds still sway in the evening wind. But the margin for delay is gone. We can continue to treat wetlands as vacant land waiting to be claimed, or we can recognise them as the shields that protect us from floods, food insecurity and climate crisis. In saving Kashmir’s wetlands, we are not just conserving ecosystems, we are choosing to protect a way of life, a heritage of coexistence, and a future where nature and people still have space to thrive together.
The silence that follows the disappearance of wetlands is not just ecological, it is human. And once that silence settles, it may be too late to bring the waters back.
By: Muskaan Talat, Kashif Farooq Bhat
