Introduction: The impacts of land use/land cover (LULC) pattern on surface components of water are less well recognized, particularly in the Kashmir Himalaya. The paper highlights the relationship between LULC and water chemistry for Wular Lake in Kashmir Himalaya. Methods: We used Indian Remote Sensing satellite (IRS) P6 using LISS III sensor with a spatial resolution of 23.5 m for various LULC categories. ERDAS IMAGINE 9.0 and ArcGIS 9.3 were used to generate the LULC map. Water parameters like pH and temperature were measured in the field, while parameters like dissolved oxygen, free carbon dioxide, chloride, alkalinity nitrogen and phosphorus values were determined by APHA (Standard Methods for Examination of Water and Wastewater, 1998).Results: The present study provides us the information about the proportion of different land cover categories and their correlation with some limnological parameters of Wular Lake. Among the various physicochemical parameters, low dissolved oxygen (DO) was observed in the LULC class which has the highest percentage of agricultural land (47.04%; r = 0.688 P < 0.05) followed by horticultural land (19.10%; r = 0.554; P < 0.01) in its catchment. The catchment area with greater percentage of agricultural fields drains maximum fertilizers in the lake, resulting in growth of microorganisms that deplete the dissolved oxygen content in the water body. Conclusions: Pearson matrix predicts that agricultural land, built up, horticultural land and wasteland seem to be the foremost factors responsible for the deterioration of the water quality of the lake. Careful planning of land use is needed to bring significant reductions in nutrient exports from agriculture through various tributaries, in order to restore and maintain water quality of the lake. If this trend of agriculturization manifestation continues unabated, it will be difficult to restore the lake water quality and to subsequently correct ecological manifestation of eutrophication through which the lake is undergoing at present.

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Hokersar wetland suffers highly due by nutrient inputs from the catchment area, internal wetland processes and various types of anthropogenic pressures around. To characterize nutrient dynamics of the wetland, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) samples were collected from six study sites in the Queen wetland of Kashmir Himalaya for a period of one year from Sep. 2012 to Aug. 2013. Clear spatial and temporal variations were observed among the recorded parameters (ammonical nitrogen, nitrate nitrogen, total orthophosphate phosphorus and total phosphorus) throughout the year. Ammonical nitrogen concentration was found to be maximum in winter (242.3±10.1 µg/L). Lower nitrate nitrogen was observed in summer, recording 259.6±35.3 µg/L. Both the forms of phosphorus registered higher values in summer and lower values in winter. Scatter plot showed highly significant values among all the parameters (R²=0.748 and 0.719). Principal component analysis showed highest principle component vector displacement among the sites IV and VI reflecting polluted nature of the sites. Further, higher Eigen-vector displacement values were due to ammonical nitrogen and nitrate nitrogen, registering values 3.36724 and 0.542639 respectively. Similarity matrix was highest between total phosphorus and ammonical nitrogen (92.9666%), followed by ammonical nitrogen and nitrate nitrogen making 58.5729%.

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The wheel animalcules, belonging to minor phylum Rotifera are the most important soft-bodied invertebrate pseudocoelomates, bilaterally symmetrical, metazoan protostomes ranging from 50 to 2,000 mm in size with three regions (corona, trunk and foot) in the body. Phylum Rotifera with cosmopolitan distribution has an estimate of about 2,030 identified species. Because of their great importance in the aquatic ecosystems, the existing literature on rotifers is quite considerable worldwide, yet comparatively scanty literature is available on the taxonomy and distribution of rotifers of Kashmir Himalaya. Therefore, in the present article an attempt has been made to document the historical review of rotifers of Kashmir Himalayan waters.