Bangalore

Abstract

The lakes, particularly the urban lakes, are in varying degrees of environmental degradation. The main cause is the rapidly increasing population in the catchment areas of lakes and industrialization. The large inflow of municipal sewage and industrial effluents, improper management of storm water/combined with over-abstraction, over-exploitation of the lake for activities like recreation, fishing, encroachments, land reclamation and resulting in lake shrinkage, shoreline erosion and impact on lake hydrology, deterioration in water quality and impact on biodiversity, climate change, etc. The deforestation in the catchment areas leading to siltation and flow of pesticides from the agricultural wastes is the other major causes. The result is that the lakes are becoming increasingly unfit as a source of drinking water, recreational activities, and habitats for aquatic life. Ahmedabad city is no exception to the present trend of urbanization all over the world leading to the migration of people from rural to urban areas. The unprecedented increase in population has an impact on the existing resources of the city. The lakes could not escape the fallout of rapid urbanization .Some lakes have vanished, and many others have shrunk in size. The Aim is to study the temporal change in the number of lakes Ahmedabad city, for which the survey record of Survey of India, done at a gap of 30-40(approximately) years is used. The further study is done to find the relationship between the changing numbers of lake and spatial growth of the city. The scope has been limited to studying the numbers of the lake in the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation area, in the year 2015; the size and area of the lake are not considered. It is evident from the study that the increase in population has a direct impact on the decrease in the number of lakes.