The tests carried by the fisheries and limnological experts at Sher-i-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences have traced the cause of the recent fish mortality in Nigeen lake to the increasing eutrophy in the ecosystem of the lake. Eutrophic condition refers to the richness in mineral and organic nutrients in a lake that encourage proliferation of plant life. This reduces the dissolved oxygen content necessary for the survival of other organisms, like fish. High temperature in Valley did play its role but the real cause of the massive mortality is the accumulating organic load of the lake. Some experts, however, are terming eutrophic diagnosis of lake as alarmist as such a condition ends possibility of all life. But this doesn’t detract from the fact that Nigeen is facing a drastic environmental degradation. And the death of fish is the symptom of this condition. What is surprising is that it took a massive fish mortality for the lake monitoring agency like LAWDA to wake up to the deterioration that has set in. It was on the urging of High Court that the fisheries experts at Agricultural University set about studying the cause of fish mortality. If lake is eutrophic as the experts have concluded, we should have received a warning about it from LAWDA. The agency should have raised red flags long time ago, so that effective steps could have been taken to at least marginally improve the condition of lake. This would have been sufficient to pre-empt the death of fish in such large numbers.  Being the principal lake monitoring agency, LAWDA is supposed to check the water quality of the lake on a day-to-day basis. A precipitous decline in oxygen level would have thus automatically set off the alarm bells. True, Nigeen like Dal requires a sustained and a long term effort for its preservation but periodic reports about the pollution level of the lakes would go a long way to warn us against any impending environmental danger. This will also sensitize the public about the urgent need to conserve these endangered water-bodies.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 12 Aug 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 12 Aug 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 13 Aug 2012 00:00:00 IST