My City My Responsibility - River ecosystem services

Dear All,

In my last blog we saw how river revival done in an appropriate way, can enhance the river ecosystem and in turn provide us with lots of benefits. These benefits that we get from a healthy river ecosystem are known as ecosystem services offered by the river. 

The picture below shows the different categories of services offered by our rivers. These are provisioning/supplying, regulatory, cultural and supporting. 

Source: Ecosystem and their services

Though transportation is one of the supplying services offered by the rivers, I feel there are serious problems with the way transport is being proposed for Mula - Mutha river system. More about this next week!

Pournima Agarkar.

My City My Responsibility - River revival

Dear All, 

Wetland patch in Mutha riverbed showing good fish and bird diversity

The above image is of the wetland patch that is seen near the mhatre bridge and which should be preserved as mentioned in my last blog. 

With reference to the comments that I have received in my last blog, I would like to say that, yes we need river rejuvenation program and not river development. But what does river rejuvenation or revival means. Rejuvenation or revival simply means restoration of river to its original form. 

In case of our rivers which smelled of fishes as per one of the comments, which means getting back the same water quality that is suitable for aquatic life in the rivers. With the riverfront development plan happening we as citizens should advocate for the quality of water in our rivers such that it can allow fishes to thrive and supply potable water for all. Such services provided by rivers are also known as ecosystem services. We shall see more about in the next blog. 

Pournima Agarkar.