16. Urban Wetlands: Opportunities and Challenges in Indian cities—A Case of Bhubaneswar City, Odisha

Urban wetlands function differently than those in natural areas. In natural wetland, the water level is not changing rapidly until and unless natural events occur in urban context, and the water level of wetlands can fluctuate more rapidly due to anthropogenic activities which affect the ecosystem services of the wetland. The landscape of urban wetlands does not only have the role of carbon sink, water accumulation, cleaning and drainage but also it binds the nature with city dwellers. Yet, as built up spaces within urban areas have increased, these treasures have undergone a drastic decline. Analysis of published land use and land cover data from 22 cities by Wetlands International South Asia team, indicates that during 1970 to 2014, every one square kilometre increase in built-up area matched up with a loss of 25 ha wetlands. The main thrust of the study is to analyse the major causes behind wetland loss in the capital city and also to assess the wetland ecosystem services for the existing wetlands, its conservation and management.