Ecology, Conservation, and Restoration of Chilika Lagoon, India, 1st ed. 2020
Wetlands: Ecology, Conservation and Management Series, Vol. 6

This book chronicles the decades-long work of studying, analyzing, and reversing the environmental pressures that threatened India?s Chilika Lagoon, the largest brackish-water lagoon in the region, and the second largest in the world. Designated as one of India?s first Ramsar Sites in 1981, Chilika Lagoon continued to degrade for a decade longer. Then, the Chilika Development Authority (CDA) was established to gather information and devise a restoration plan that benefits the ecosystems of the lagoon, with sensitivity to the needs and livelihoods of local communities.

Expert contributors detail the work of analysis, planning and implementation, including extensive coverage of such topics as:

•          Devising a plan for implementing Ramsar wise use guidelines
•          Sedimentologic, chemical, and isotopic impacts
•          Hydrodynamics and salinity
•          Runoff and sediment in watersheds of the Lagoon's Western Catchment
•          Long-term analysis of water quality and continued water quality monitoring
•          Bio-optical models for cyclone impact assessment
•          Studies of geomorphology, land use, and sedimentary environments
•          Spatiotemporal assessment of phytoplankton communities
•          Creation of a post-restoration scenario for fish and fisheries
•          Assessing status of waterbirds, species diversity and migration patterns

Ecology, Conservation, and Restoration of Chilika Lagoongoes beyond scientific research articles to explore institutional and governance issues, political ecology, and the Ramsar Convention?s guidelines for ecosystem restoration. The book will benefit researchers, wetland managers, government policy makers and more general readers concerned with restoration and conservation of wetlands around the planet.

Preface.- Introduction.- An overview of the restoration and management of Chilika Lagoon: successful application of the Ramsar wise use guidelines.- Ecological characterization of Chilika: defining strategies and management needs for wise use.- Ecosystem services: implications for managing Chilika.- Sedimentologic, chemical, and isotopic constraints on the Anthropogenic influence on Chilika Lake, India.- Modelling of hydrodynamics and salinity characteristics in Chilika Lagoon.- Assessment of runoff and sediment yield from selected watersheds in the Western Catchment of the Chilika Lagoon.- Long-term analysis of water quality in Chilika Lagoon and application of bio-optical models for cyclone impact assessment.- Spatio-temporal variation in physicochemical parameters of water in the Chilika lagoon.- Geomorphology, land use/land cover and sedimentary environments of the Chilika Basin.- Spatiotemporal Assessment of phytoplankton communities in the Chilika lagoon.- Fish and fisheries of Chilika: post-restoration scenario.- Avifauna of Chilika, Odisha: assessment of spatial and temporal changes.- Biodiversity of benthic fauna in Chilika lagoon.- Microbial ecology of Chilika Lagoon.- Survey, characterization, ecology, and management of macrophytes in Chilika lagoon.- Index.

C. Max Finlayson is an internationally renowned wetland ecologist with extensive experience internationally in water pollution, agricultural impacts, invasive species, climate change, and human well-being and wetlands. He has participated in global assessments such as those conducted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate  Change, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and the Global Environment Outlook 4 & 5 (UNEP). Since the early 1990s, he has been a technical adviser to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands and has written extensively on wetland ecology and management. He has also been actively involved in environmental NGOs and from 2002 to 2007 was president of the governing council of global NGO Wetlands International. He has contributed to over 450 journal articles, reports, guidelines, proceedings, and book chapters on wetland ecology and  management and to the development of concepts and methods for wetland inventory, assessment, and  monitoring and undertaken many site-based assessments in many countries. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Marine and Freshwater Research published by CSIRO Publishing and of the book series Wetland, Ecology, Conservation and Management published by Springer. 

Gurdeep Rastogi is working as a Senior Scientist at the Wetland Research and Training Centre (WRTC) of the Chilika Development Authority (CDA). He has received his PhD in the area of Environmental Microbiology from the National Centre for Cell Sciences, Pune, in the year 2006. He has completed his postdoctoral research at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology and the University of California, Davis, USA. He is currently heading the molecular ecological research at WRTC, a nodal lab of CDA which has been entrusted with the responsibility of managing the Chilika Lake by the Odisha State Government. His research area is focussed on understanding the microbial biogeography andf