Workshop on Urban lake monitoring & Management (September 23-25, 2009)
Report by the participants (compiled by Debyan Bose and Nita Shashidharan)
September 23rd : Day 1
The workshop started after the inauguration by Prof. Sitharam, Chairman, CiSTUP and release of the CiSTUP technical report 1 (23-25 Sept, 2009). The aim of the workshop is capacity building, dissemination of Knowledge and aid standardization of techniques.
The first presentation on “Lakes –Mr. Durga Madhab Mahapatra” provided an overview of the different lakes- natural and artificial, comparisons were made between lakes and wetlands using pictorial representation and examples of various lakes both in India as well as the world. It also stressed on the various functioning of a lake.
Next, Dr. T.V. Ramachandra’s lecture on “Ecology, Environment and Policy: Linkage” discussed various hydrological aspects of lakes and stressed on the importance of conserving not only wetlands but also catchment areas. The different encroachments taking place in Bangalore and the urbanization pattern using remote sensing were presented that gave an idea of rapid ecological loss that is at stake. For conservation to be possible one needs to use approaches including, environment education, capacity building, creation of new lake, maintenance of database, formation of a spatial decision support system and sensitization of policy makers. The gap between scientist and policy makers and even implementers needs to be linked.
Dr. H.S. Sudhira gave a talk on “How to go about researching”. He stressed on developing a scientific attitude and passion for your research- “Be motivated. It’s you and your research”. He elaborated on the essential skills required- reading skills, reference management, writing skills and presentation skills. Also, the use of internet as a tool for research was highlightened.
The fourth lecture was by Mr. Karthick B on “Monitoring of Wetlands: needs and Strategies”. The lecture commenced with an introduction to wetlands and their values. The various types of monitoring that is including Physico-chemical quality elements; Biological quality elements and Hydro morphological quality elements were introduced. The wetland rapid assessment technique was discussed and strategies to be undertaken after rapid assessment were mentioned. The session ended with the use of multivariate analysis in monitoring of wetlands.
“The physico-chemical aspects of Bangalore lakes: An overview” by Ms. Alakananda B, provided an overview of lakes with respect to classification and variousparameters that is pH, BOD, electrical conductivity and so on, that need to be checked during monitoring with respect to Bangalore lakes and also diatoms present in them.
Next, we had a session on “Assessment of C, N and P in lakes” by Mr. Durga Madhab Mahapatra, who discussed the role of C, N and P in the lake ecosystem and the biogeochemical cycles of each followed by methods of their estimation.
The “Bird watching” talk by Mr. Amit high lightened the importance of birds ecologically and gave an overview about techniques used for aves assessment – line transect, belt transect ad point count with respect to monitoring. He also mentioned the various precautions to be taken when going for a bird watching session.
This was followed by movies: Freshwater ecosystem and Lion tailed Macaque, each of which stressed on the animal behavior in relation to the kind of ecosystems they live in. The second movie also depicted the endangered statue of lion tailed Macaque.
Eventually we had an interactive session wherein participants shared their experiences and thoughts about the workshop’s first day. It ended with a short talk by Prof. Subhash who spoke about the importance of water and water conservation since ancient times. He stressed on developing a holistic view and vision with respect to management of resources.
September 24th : Day 2
The day started with a session on “Ecological monitoring techniques by Dr. Gururaja K.V”, who discussed the various mistakes that should be avoided during ecological monitoring and also, why and where ecological monitoring can be done. He emphasized on the use of amphibians as bioindicators citing a case study from Sharavathi river basin and the techniques (all out search/ scan search) employed during sampling).
When biomonitoring one should be clear about the key questions, objectives, reasons for study, study area, time constraints, sampling techniques and even use of statistics for the gathered data. We were introduced to various organisms that could be used as bioindicators in the next few sessions.
The lecture on “Diatoms as Bioindicators-Karthick B” stressed on the criteria’s to be taken into consideration when choosing an organism as bioindicator i.e. relevance, sensitivity, broad applicability, representativeness, cost and significance of diatom indices which provide an integrated reflection of water quality. He presented a case study of central Western Ghats describing sampling methods, calculations of indices and use of canonical correspondence and diatoms data to assess water pollution. The future research should target- Macro-ecological studies, Habitat specification, regional species and community concordance.
Next, Dr. N.A. Aravind spoke about “Butterflies as bioindicators” wherein he discussed how changes in biodiversity can be assessed by increase, decrease or stable population studies. He described the use of transect method for study of butterflies and mentioned the various butterfly monitoring schemes carried out worldwide e.g., “UK butterfly monitoring scheme”.
The talk on “Insects as bioindicators by Supriya Guruprasad”, discussed aquatic insects and their adaptations, methods of sampling insects using D-net, collecting, sorting and identifying them. She mentioned a case study of a Bangalore lake- Malathalli with respect to insect biomonitoring and difficulties arising during such a study.
The primer on mapping: lecture – Dr. H.S. Sudhira explored role of GIS in mapping with respect to modeling objects in space and time. For data preparation one requires use of GPS, digitized maps or remote sensing techniques while data analysis needs use of softwares like Quantum GIS, GRASS etc. we were introduced to various open access softwares available for such analysis and were also briefed on use of GPS.
This was followed by lab session wherein we were taught to map points (with respect to latitude and longitude) for a study area and also measurement of lines and areas using Quantum GIS software.
The other field session of the day included a visit to the Jublie Park on IISc campus to study basic water quality monitoring and demonstrate use of GPS. Unfortunately due to rain this session remained incomplete.
Also, there was a session on “Mollusc as bioindicators- Boominathan M” who stressed on ecological value of mollusks and how studying an organism as a bioindicator would make us understand physicochemical factors affected competition, food availability, contamination and habitat availability. He mentioned that mollusks are preferred for bioaccumulation studies and few species which are indicators of polluted, slightly polluted and highly specialized environment.
September 25th : Day 3
Today’s session started with the bird watching session in the morning whereby we spotted around 10-15 species of different birds. The notable among them were the Indian koel, Crow, Spotted Dove, Parakeets, White Cheeked Barbet, Brahmini Kite, Purple Sunbird, Taylor Bird, Ashy Priniya and Red Whiskered Bulbul. This was followed by Ms. Alakananda’s demonstration on the water quality assessment involving the D.O, B.O.D, C.O.D, Alkalinity, Hardness, TDS, TSS, Electrical conductivity, and salinity. After returning, there was a talk being given by Dr. Gururaja on the Ecological statistics where he highlightened the points relation to the mean, median, mode, chi-square analysis, correlation, regression, Shannon’s and Simpson indices for measuring the biodiversity. This was subsequently followed by lab session whereby students got the on hand analysis of data using PAST (Paleoecological statistics software). Then there were two lectures which were subsequently given by Dr. Prakash Mesta on biomonitoring using different species in the coastal region of India followed by Dr. Durgappa’s session on the biomonitoring using fishes. The days talk was being concluded by Dr. H.N Chanakya’s talk on the C and N footprint analysis in the Bangalore city where we mainly learned about the various human activities which was leading to the cause of release of green house gases. At last, a movie was being showed on Diatoms. The interactive sessions took stock of all sessions, view of the participants regarding the workshop where both positive and negative points were deliberated. It was suggested to a lack of adequate lab session, incorporating graduate students from North East and Jammu and Kashmir etc. |
