The Bill introduced in the J&K Legislative Assembly for granting Housing rights to Dal dwellers, if passed in its proposed form without stringent ecological safeguards and expert consultations could have serious and far-reaching consequences for our wetlands—particularly Dal and Nageen Lakes, which are already under immense pressure from encroachments, land filling, reclamation and unauthorised construction.

A law intended to provide housing rights to long-standing lakeside residents must not become a legal pathway for legitimising existing encroachments or opening the door to further land filling, reclamation and large-scale construction. The right to housing for original inhabitants and not to subsequent generations must be protected, but it cannot come at the cost of destroying the very ecosystem on which the future of Kashmir depends.Dal lake has already undergone a transformation from open water and marsh into aquatic vegetation, floating agriculture, built-up/settlement and other land uses, while its water chemistry has shown long-term nutrient enrichment and reduced transparency.

More than five decades of historical surveys, remote-sensing studies and water-quality monitoring show a profound transformation of Dal Lake. The evidence records contraction of open-water space in several comparable datasets, expansion of floating vegetation, agriculture and built-up land within the lake system, increasing fragmentation of the wetland landscape, and persistent nutrient enrichment and eutrophication. The CAG’s latest audit found the mapped water/submerged-vegetation category declining from 15.40 km² in 2007 to 12.91 km² in 2020, while floating vegetation and other human-influenced land uses expanded.”

Satellite image based remote sensing of Dal Lake shows a drastic change detection of land use and land cover over since 1972 - 2013 which shows Dal having an open clear water area of 13.19 km² and floating gardens at 1.13 km² and built-up area at 0.68 km² which in 2013 was merely 10.25 km² while as floating gardens and built up increased to 2.89 km² and 2.02 km² respectively.

Spatiotemporal........

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