Developmental Regulations to Conserve Catchment Area of an Urban Water Body: A Case of Upper Lake in the City of Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India

A lake reflects its catchment and provides a wide range of ecological services useful for the sustenance and betterment of human lives and other living organisms. The fast-paced developmental activities in the catchment area of lakes and over-consumption of available resources are resulting in the degradation of ecological services of the lake. The Upper Lake in Bhopal, a million-plus population city situated in the central part of India, has been selected for the study. The current regulatory regime for environmental conservation of the catchment area comprises a legislative framework and a set of regulatory institutions. Inadequacies in each accelerates environmental degradation of the Upper Lake, delays and escalates cost of developmental projects. This paper is an attempt to find out gaps in the existing institutional framework to conserve the catchment area. The present study focused on identifying and assessing major issues pertaining to the degradation of the Upper Lake, thereafter establishing a cause-and-effect relationship between anthropogenic activities and their environmental impacts. Subsequently, formulating developmental regulations for conserving the Upper Lake and its catchment area. Primarily, GIS application has been employed to delineate the catchment area of the Upper Lake by using catchment area assessment technique. Furthermore, a primary survey targeting the village stakeholders in the catchment area was conducted to analyze socio-economic profile and assess the agricultural practices adopted. Finally, formulated an institutional framework to conserve, govern and monitor the catchment area and the Upper Lake from the anthropogenic issues.