Revision summary
Filling urban lakes removes flood storage and groundwater recharge. Chennai 2015 and Bengaluru’s lost lakes are the working examples. Heat, dengue drains, and lost bird habitat follow the concrete. Wetland Rules 2017 and lake buffers are the legal reply. Treat water bodies as infrastructure, not as vacant plots.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
Filling a tank or marsh to build a colony is not a free plot. It removes a flood cushion, a heat sink, and a living wetland, and the city pays in the next cloudburst.
Body
Hydrology and flood
- Reclamation cuts storage and recharge. Stormwater then runs on roads, as Chennai 2015 showed after Pallikaranai and other wetlands were nibbled.
- Bengaluru’s lost lakes, mapped by researchers and the Comptroller’s urban reports, turn every extreme rain into a traffic lake.
- Encroached floodplains of the Yamuna in Delhi and the Mithi in Mumbai are the same logic in a river city.
Ecology and climate
- Wetlands filter sewage and hold birds. Filling them kills fisheries and migratory stopovers, against the spirit of the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017.
- Open water cools a ward. Concrete in its place raises the urban heat island and dengue-friendly stagnant pockets in drains.
Examples and duty
- East Kolkata Wetlands still treat sewage if they are not converted; they are a working argument against fill-and-build.
- Srinagar’s Wular and Dal edges, and Hyderabad’s shrinking tanks, show Himalayan and Deccan versions of the same loss.
- Smart Cities and AMRUT must treat lakes as blue infrastructure, not as land banks. Restore interconnecting rajakaluves and enforce buffer zones.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD R[Reclamation] --> F[Lost storage flood] R --> H[Heat island] R --> E[Dead wetland] F --> C[City damage]
Conclusion
Reclamation turns a water body into a flood machine, a hotter ward, and a dead habitat. Chennai, Bengaluru, and Mumbai are the textbooks. Keep the tank, or buy a bigger pump forever.
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Next question on this syllabus topic (2021 · Q10). View answer →
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Can a concrete storm drain replace a lake?
It moves water faster. It does not store, cool, or clean like a wetland.
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Is every filled tank illegal?
Some old grants exist. Environmentally, the implication is the same: the city has less sponge.
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