Wetlands for a Sustainable Urban Future: Insights from Pondicherry, South India

Abstract

Wetland ecosystems hold an important part of the world's biodiversity and are complex social-ecological systems. Aiming to understand interdependencies among their components and to define management policies, the social-ecological trajectory of Oussudu lakea wetland of Pondicherry region in South Indiawas reconstructed and analysed. During the last decades, this wetland has transformed from an irrigation tank to a lake to cater biodiversity conservation and recreation. The environmental history highlights a governance change that has contributed to "black boxing" the wetland's functional environment and to conceal major water issues at regional and local levels. This study emphasizes the importance of implementing an approach that combines the management of this urban lake commons with a multi-scalar, socio-ecological and multistakeholder analysis. A trade-off on the seasonal water regime between different users -including fauna and flora -has to be found.