Abstract
Freshwater wetlands are more threatened than any other ecosystem in the world. The current trend of freshwater wetland crisis arises a question ‘whether it is conversion or conservation of wetlands' which is absolutely a dilemma. Therefore, this study aims critical evaluation at wetland governance and sustainability of urban wetlands in Colombo. The results reveal that the Colombo wetlands have lost their territory from a moderate to a severe degree. The wetland loss is higher in Kaduwela, Kolonnawa, and Kesbewa areas. Recently the causes of Colombo wetland loss has moved with a new frame. Land grabbing and green grabbing are the cycles that transforming the geostrategically important urban wetlands into hybrid ecosystems. Due to this, the frequency of flash flood events and inundation time has increased than ever. It is important to ensure urban freshwater wetland sustainability and surveillance following sustainable development goals and it is time to have freshwater ethics.
TopIntroduction
An ecosystem has always been made up of biotic and abiotic matter, including all the physical, chemical, and biological processes that operate on Earth. Ecosystems are dynamic, whether they are small or large. That is, damage to a part of this system directly or indirectly affects the entire ecosystem. Among the ecosystems, freshwater ecosystems are more sensitive and their relationship dates back to early history. The world's oldest civilization is based on where water resources are available. That is, the formation of early civilizations like Mesopotamian Civilization also known as the Cradle of Civilizations along the Euphrates and Tigris valleys also known as the Cradle of Civilizations or the Fertile Crescent between 4000 and 3500 BC; another example is the emergence of Egyptian civilization around the Nile Valley around 3200 BC (Gokce, 2018) Besides, the Hwanhuou or Yellow-river Civilization in China and Indus-Valley in Northwest India are great examples of civilizations that flourished along a river. Thus, it has now been proven that there are some key factors behind the formation of settlements near water bodies. Among them, agriculture is the prime. Adequate water, as well as land and alluvial soil, are the essential elements of agriculture. Accordingly, this need was met by water-based river valley lands. These ancient civilizations provide evidence that paddy cultivation was the mainstay of agriculture in these lands. The lands used for this purpose were river valleys on both sides of submerged rivers, most of which were later known as wetlands. That is, the wetland is the first ecosystem to be affected by mankind on Earth.
Globally, wetlands are distributed in every biome with an exception of Antarctica. It is approximately 6% of Earth’s land surface covered by wetlands (Reddy & DeLaune, 2008). Being complex ecosystem wetland systems are driven by various physical, chemical and biological processes. In the beginning, scientists used to explain wetlands by their life form, hydrology, morphology, chemistry, vegetation or microbiology (Reddy & DeLaune, 2008). It was like that fabled group of blind men trying to describe an elephant that was completely a mess. Extensive research specializations in wetland science in the 20th century paved the way to further experiments of critical features of the global landscape because of their unique role in regulating global biogeochemical cycles, value and function of the wetlands. Wetlands are located in areas with low elevation and higher water tables (Reddy & DeLaune, 2008) including those of marshes, swamps, bogs and similar areas under a comprehensive definition. Different classification systems of wetlands have been developed to function for various purposes. United States Fish and Wildlife Service in 1979 presented a classification of wetlands and deepwater habitats of the United States which is a hierarchical system based on marine, estuarine, riverine, lacustrine and palustrine (Matthews, 2013). Similarly, the Ramsar Convention made wetland classification based on the US classification which was modified by adding it to human-created or cultural wetlands. Other classifications are based on the structure or function or management goals (Crandell, 2021). Among the most used definition of wetlands is the Ramsar definition in 1971.
Areas of marsh, fen, peatland or water, whether natural or artificial, permanent or temporary with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or salt, including areas of marine water the depth of which at low tide does not exceed six metres (Kotagama & Bambaradeniya, 2006).
According to the above definitions, a wetland is a lowland area relative to the external physical environment and is also an area of greater biodiversity with a waterlogged soil zone most of the year. The distribution of wetlands are varied in size, functionality and geography (Figure 1) (Finlayson et al., 2016).
Figure 1. Global distribution of wetlands
Key Terms in this Chapter
Social-ecological Transformation: An umbrella term that describes recent political, socioeconomic, and cultural shifts ensuing from attempts to handle the social-ecological crisis.
Wetland Ecosystem Services: Direct and indirect products and services provided by the wetlands employing a dynamic and broad community.
Wise-use of Wetlands: Maintenance of wetland ecological characters, achieved via the appliance of ecosystem approach among the context of sustainable development.
Green Grabbing: An oversized scale personal appropriation of land, resources, and water legitimized with the protection of the setting or supported through mechanisms associated with global climate change mitigation. Almost like the thought of land grabbing it's a political term, used each by activists and scholars to criticize massive scale land appropriation processes. green grabbing or land grabbing is the privatization or appropriation of land for functions of advancing a “green” economy whereas excluding native, endemic individuals from natural resources.
Wetland Governance: A method characterised by multi-stakeholder administration with dynamic diplomacy among native governments over wetlands to rework them into commercially necessary financial assets.
Integrated Freshwater Landscape: Spatially connected lakes, wetlands, and rivers to at least one another at their macro-scale.
Anthropogenic Climate Change: Humans area unit inflicting the foremost of current changes to climate as well as heating and emissions of greenhouse gases.
Freshwater Ethics: Elaborating our values and moral principles regarding freshwater and nature, and concerning individuals and cultures, facilitate to grasp higher who we are, however, individuals think of the planet and the way their neighbours do an equivalent. A field of freshwater ethics, with space for divergent however ethically grounded views, will facilitate people to understand themselves and others deeply and realize new and surprising solutions to the challenges of the freshwater ecosystems.