ELURU TOURISM

Kolleru Lake

Kolleru Lake is one of the largest freshwater lakes in India located in the state of Andhra Pradesh 20 kilometres away from the city of Eluru. It spans into two districts - Krishna and West Godavari. Kolleru Lake is located in the inter-deltaic plain of rivers Krishna and Godavari and serves as a natural flood-Kolleru Lake is one of the largest freshwater lakes in India located in the state of Andhra Pradesh 20 kilometres away from the city of Eluru. It spans into two districts - Krishna and West Godavari. Kolleru Lake is located in the inter-deltaic plain of rivers Krishna and Godavari and serves as a natural flood-balancing reservoir for these two rivers. The lake is fed directly by water from several seasonal rivers/streams and several inflowing drains and channels of irrigation systems of river Krishna and Godavari. This lake is a major tourist attraction, since many birds migrate here in winter, such as Spot billed Pelican, Siberian Crane, Ibis, and Painted Storks.

The lake is an important habitat for an estimated 20 million resident and migratory birds, including the grey or spot billed pelican (Pelecanus philippensis). The lake was declared as a wildlife sanctuary in November 1999 under India's Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, and designated as a wetland of international importance in November 2002 under the International Ramsar Convention. The wildlife sanctuary covers an area of 308 km2. However, thousands of fish tanks were dug up and effectively converted the lake/water body into a mere flood plain/drain. This had great impact in terms of pollution leading to difficulty in getting drinking water for the local people. This is in addition to the loss of ecological diversity and intrusion of sea water into the inland portions and its resulting adverse influence on the rainfall pattern in this region. This imbalance, created by the illegal appearance of aquaculture in and around the lake, has affected the natural functioning of the hydrological system of the lake and resulted in flooding of the foreshore areas of the lake and affecting thousands of acres of crop lands.

The existing land use practices/ change detection in and around the Kolleru lake has been carried out by employing geospatial as well as conventional data sets and consulting the satellite images of IRS LISS-III FCC digital and geo-coded photographic products on 1:50,000 scale pertaining to rabi season dated, 27-12-2006, 19-03-2005, 28-02-2005 and 01-01-2007 and digital data of Kharif season of IRS-P6 LISS IV MX data, The details of various land use classes are listed in the table below. It is inferred, that approximately 70% of the lake was occupied by aquaculture, while agriculture has encroached around 10%. The area under aquaculture amounts to nearly 212.799 km2 within the lake etendt below 5’ contour. The agricultural encroachments were mostly of paddy cultivation. Further, the aquaculture between 5’-10’ contour accounts for nearly 147 km2. The undisturbed lake is infested with weeds like elephant grass and water hyacinth