DAL LAKE IN BEAUTIFUL KASHMIR

Dear Kashmiries and authors,

I have been learned by this group that the dimond of the earth, KASHMIR, experiences a very serious problem with azolla symbiosis in its DAL lake. Although I am not belong to Kasmir as a citizen, I breath with Kasmir as if I were from there. When I saw its pictures on the net, that made me fall in love with it. I just want to contribute to the solution of the problem the lake Dal suffers from.

First of all, I would like to convey my infinite thanks to Dr. Kal for his elaborating the problem and letting us know of it. It looks to me that there are socially excluded residents in the lake Dal area which doesn't receive enough economic investment to improve the local population's sanitary conditions, sewage systems, and environmental health. Secondly, it is highly possible to me that there are alot of discharges of houses and living entities to the lake. Thirdly, there may be very intensive agriculture within and around the drainage basin of the Dal lake, which requires extremely high inputs of artficial and organic fertilizers, especially nigrogeneous and phosphorous compozitions in the chemical forms. Finally, for a long time, the local and governmental authorities may have been extremely ignorants of the problem and accumulation of the extraneous agents in long-run caused this problem to show up today.

After I deduced these reasons from Dr. Kal's article, I, as a soil science major, decided to approach the soulution to the problem. Except the administrative authorities in the region, none of us can touch the social and economical policy type issues that manage the case for the Lake Dal. However, there is a very strong tool we, the lovers of Kashmir and its hydrologic entities, can use and be aware of. The AZOLLA is an ecological problem in the lake Dal. The AZOLLA is a symbiosis life form in rice paddies wherever rice is grown. However, rice paddies need AZOLLA to servive because AZOLLA is fixing nitrogen from the atmosphere and becomes a very strong contributor to the rice paddy lands as green manure. This is the only and major advantage why people want to have AZOLLA in their lands. The biomass (especially living or dead organic weight) of AZOLLA is significantly important to intensive rice paddies. the largest part of nitrogen is contributed to the plants thru nitrogen fixing life forms (symbionts and basically nitrogen fixing bvacteria, such as azotobacter, some bacillus and rhizobium species). the agrerian is just adding the critical amount of artificial nitrogen fertilizer to their soils so the plant can survive at the nitrogen deficit times. However, the Lake Dal is notonly polluted through nitrogeneous fertilizer, but also by phosphorous fertilizer that are applied to the landscape more than enough. When any rain falls, this rain is infiltrates the soil. If the rainfal is more than soils infiltration capacity, the rain starts overland flow/Runoff on the surface and subsurface flow in the soil. Although phosphorous is strongly fixed to the soil exchange surfaces (colloids, clay, organic matter, and nonoparticles), excess water has strong capability to discharge and translocate nitrogen and phosphorous through the sediment transport and leaching. When these two critical chemicals reach the lake, lake starts another process, called eutriphication. Now, the lake starts its own deadly process. It becomes stagnent water, less oxygenated, not much respiration for the aquatic life, and significant accumulation of sediment and organic remnents at the lake floor. What is more, the stinking smell pervades miles and miles in the region. Environment for the human being degrades. This stupilation can be extended pages and chapters perhaps, but I would like to stop at this point for logical conclusion.

Our strategy to reduce the problem to the minimum level so it cannot be effective on our lives shoud be a very wise agricultural water and nutrient management strategies. This is the key to get rid of the problem and save money. There is no logic in spending our all fundings on excessive nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizers and wasting them by applying more than needed in the soil in the region. We need to know when, what amount, how and how many times we need to fertilize our crop. This is a strategy for any agrerian who needs to take care of his soil and crop. In this way,. no fertilizer and thus no extra money of us will not be wasted and returend to us as pollution and long lasting problem of pollution in the Lake Dal. Govenrnmentally, there are many other solutions if government wants to spend some money and cure the problem. The officials can force the people who live on the lake to live in a better condition on the land rather than on water. These pople can be incorporated into local and residential life forever with very little social and economic help and they can be included in the economic and soicial systems in the region. By doing so, the refusal of these people will not be dropped into the lake and more nitrogeneous and phosphorous additions will be cut off. in a reasonably short time the lake will recover from the problem and the locals will start their swimming and fishing in the lake again.

Sincerely,
Rifat Akis