Tourism Development and Its Impact on Mountain and Himalayan Lakes in Kashmir

A Review

Abstract

Kashmir’s mountain and Himalayan lakes from the urban lake systems of Srinagar (Dal, Nigeen, and Manasbal) to the Ramsar-listed floodplain lake of Wular and the high-altitude trekking and pilgrimage lakes of the Kashmir Great Lakes circuit and the AmarnathYatra corridor lie at the center of the region’s tourism economy and its most acute environmental crises. This review synthesises peer-reviewed and policy literature on tourism-driven pressure on these lake systems to characterise the region's tourism growth trajectory and its spatial concentration around lake and meadow destinations, identify the principal mechanisms by which tourism degrades lake ecosystems, including houseboat and hotel sewage, solid and plastic waste, shoreline encroachment for tourism infrastructure, and high-altitude trekking and pilgrimage pressure. It will also synthesize lake-specific evidence from Dal, Wular, Manasbal, and the high-altitude Great Lakes and Amarnath corridor. The review finds that tourism is not the sole or always the primary driver of lake degradation in Kashmir sewage from resident and agricultural populations, encroachment and climate change are consistently identified as compounding factors but that tourism-related infrastructure, waste generation, and visitor pressure interact with these drivers in locally significant ways, and at several sites now exceed documented ecological carrying capacity. The analysis finishes with a synthesis of suggestions for sustainable tourism, and identifies the most urgent unmet need as quantitative research on carrying capacity for Kashmir’s high-altitude lakes.