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INTRODUCTION

AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS perform numerous valuable environmental functions. They recycle nutrients, purify water, recharge ground water, augment and maintain stream flow, and provide habitat for a wide variety of flora and fauna and recreation for people. A rapid population increase accompanied by unplanned developmental works has led to the pollution of surface waters due to residential, agricultural, commercial and industrial wastes / effluents and decline in the number of waterbodies. Increased demands for drainage of wetlands have been accommodated by channelisation, resulting in further loss of stream habitat, which has led to aquatic organisms becoming extinct or imperiled in increasing numbers and to the impairment of many beneficial uses of water, including drinking, swimming and fishing. Various anthropogenic activities have altered the physical, chemical and biological processes within aquatic ecosystems. An integrated and accelerated effort toward environmental restoration and preservation is needed to stop further degradation of these fragile ecosystems. Failure to restore these ecosystems will result in sharply increased environmental costs later, in the extinction of species or ecosystem types, and in permanent ecological damage. 

Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration means to restore degraded ecosystems to a level that can be permanently sustained through protection and conservation. More realistically, restoration mitigates, effects or remediates degraded ecosystems to levels that have a higher order of ecological sustainability. Restoration can occur naturally, but usually involves reductions of stresses such as nutrient or contaminant loads. Assessments of degraded aquatic ecosystems allow decisions to be made as to what to control in order to remediate effects, or how much can be relied on nature to clean itself. To achieve ecosystem stability or sustainability, decisions on what to do, including in situ options such as bioremediation or biomanipulation, as well as the development of ecosystem indicators of progress towards restoration have to be taken. Restoration towards a less degraded, but not necessarily pristine ecosystem, requires decisions as to how far the ecosystem has to be restored. To arrive at such conclusions and to monitor progress towards them requires the development of indicators of ecosystem health, stability and sustainability. If these criteria are met, the ecosystem can be declared as remediated to acceptable conditions, perhaps even restored. The level of protection or control or regulation required to reach this state is dependent on the recovery or restoration of the ecosystem and the state that needs to be maintained. Restoration means the degraded aquatic ecosystems are remediated to some level of stability or sustainability involving minimization of stresses, in situ treatments, and probably conservation of components of the total aquatic ecosystem that have not yet been degraded.

Restoration is viewed in watershed context. Abatement of eutrophication, siltation and contaminant problems are more effective when inputs are controlled. Reduction of inputs enhances the long-term effectiveness of in-lake approaches. The watershed is the natural scale for restoration and would be self sustaining. Effective restoration can be achieved through collaboration among scientists, economists, managers, policy makers and local people. The proposed Lake 2002 symposium on conservation, restoration and management of aquatic ecosystems will enable planners, scientists, administrators and NGO's concerned with watershed development in the region to discuss the various aspects involved in the management of wetlands. This will enable better understanding of the hydrology, water and land resource development programmes and monitoring of their performance for sustainable development