Assessment of impacts by floating gardens biotechnology and their sustainable remediation in Inle Lake, prominent wetland of Central Myanmar | |
| Author | Khin Seint Seint Aye |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.EV-15-11 |
| Subject(s) | Wetlands--Geographic information systems--Myanmar--Inle Lake Wetlands Remote sensing--Myanmar--Inle Lake Lake ecology--Myanmar--Inle Lake |
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Environmental Engineering and Management |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Series Statement | Thesis ; no. EV-15-11 |
| Abstract | Floating gardens biotechnology is an innovative strategy, which was applied in diverse wetlands and rivers for various reasons for food security and other reasons. Similarly, Floating gardens biotechnology have been practiced in Inle Lake, one of the high profiled largest lake in Myanmar. Unfortunately, floating gardens in Inle Lake were blamed as the one of major drivers, which contributed to the degradation of the lake ecosystem. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the specific impacts exerted by the floating gardens cultivations to the ecosystem linked with other land use changes and investigate the remediation potential of artificial floating garden on the pilot scale study. According to the physical features of the lake, Inle Lake has high potential to grown diverse population of aquatic macrophytes and Macrophytes have been considered as the important component of aquatic ecosystem. Therefore, this study tried to identify the macrophytes diversity and evaluate role of aquatic macrophytes in Inle lake ecosystem for the sustainable water quality management. This study concluded that the floating gardens were still expanding until 2015 although the local rules and regulations was exerted on the expansion. Along with the floating gardens expansion, increased human settlement areas expansion in alarming rate and their combined impacts were more significant compared to the garden –related pollution. Due to the high nutrients inputs to the lake from various anthropogenic activities, the eutrophic potential was higher in some area of the Lake showing the maximum Chl-ɑ concentrations of 27 mg/m³ especially in the human settlement areas. Even though, the estimated Chl-ɑ concentrations near the floating gardens was investigated as the mesotrophic conditions with 12.16 to 13.03 mg/m³ of Chl-ɑ concentrations. However, fortunately, this study found out that the macrophytes in the lake ecosystem are playing some roles by absorbing entering nutrients. Based on the lessons learned during the field surveys with regard to the significant role of macrophytes in Lake Ecosystem, the pilot scale (mesocosms) study of Artificial Floating Island designed with macrophyte (Tomatoes plant) for the potential of water quality improvement with waste of food strategy. For this study, AFI showed 58.9 % removal of ammonia nitrogen with 7 days retention time and its nutrient cycling effects was identified with 52 % and 63 % removal efficiency for NO3-N and NO2-N respectively. Apart from that, the PO4-P removal efficiency was investigated with average removal efficiency 35 % that can increase to 50% during fruit formation period. |
| Year | 2015 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development (SERD) |
| Department | Department of Energy and Climate Change (Former title: Department of Energy, Environment, and Climate Change (DEECC)) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Environmental Engineering and Management (EV) |
| Chairperson(s) | Shipin, Oleg V. |
| Examination Committee(s) | Annachhatre, Ajit P.;Shrestha, Rajendra Prasad |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | Ministry of Foreign Affairs,Norway |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2015 |