Loktak Lake

Biodiversity Values

Flora
The Loktak lake with its numerous floating lands covers a variety of habitats which sustains rich biological diversity. The aquatic macrophytes comprising 233 species belonging to emergent, submergent, free - floating and rooted floating leaf types have been reported in the lake.

Fauna
A total of 425 species of animals (249 vertebrates and 176 invertebrates) have been recorded from the lake, which includes some rare animals such as Indian python, sambhar and barking deer. The lake provides refuge to thousands of birds which belong to at least 116 species. Of these, 21 species of waterfowl are migratory, most migrating from different parts of the northern hemisphere beyond the Himalayas. Keibul Lamjao National Park is the natural habitat of one of the most endangered deer, the brow - antlered deer (Cervus eldi eldi) which is represented by about hundred individuals and was once thought to be extinct.

Social & Cultural Values
Loktak lake has been considered to be the lifeline for the people of Manipur due to its importance in their socio-economic and cultural life, besides influencing the climate of the State. The socio - economic values of the lake include hydropower generation (Loktak Hydel National Project), irrigation of 24,000 ha of agricultural land, fisheries, control of floods, supply of drinking water, production of aquatic organisms of food and of commercial importance, and the many uses of phoomdi and water transport. More than 100,000 people, on and around the lake, depend for their livelihood to a great extent on the lakefishery, which is now a mix of capture and culture systems. The lake yields about 1,500 tonnes offish per year.

Threats
The root-cause problems can be traced to loss of vegetal cover in the catchment area and construction of Ithai barrage.
The degradation of the catchment area has led to the problems of siltation and increased flow of nutrients.
The construction of Ithai barrage has led to:

Changes in hydrological regimes thereby affecting ecological processes and functions of the wetland;
Inundation of agricultural lands and displacement of people from flooded lands; and.
Loss of fish population and diversity; and decrease in the thickenss of phoomdis in the Keibul Lamjao Naitonal Park thereby threatening the survival of Sangai deer.


Conservation Measures
State Government of Manipur constituted Loktak Development Authority (LDA) in 1986 "to check deterioration of the lake and to bring improvement in the areas of power generation, fisheries,tourism and siltation control." The main activities carried out by LDA include survey and demarcation, removal of silt, removal of phoomdis, control of water hyacinth through release of weevils, construction of silt detention structures, afforestation of critical catchment area by plantation of appropriate species of plants and fruit-bearing trees and soil conservation through engineering measures.