The wild grass uprooted by World Culture Festival (WCF) organisers to host the event can cause floods during heavy rain in Delhi. According to ecologists, wild grass or any kind of vegetations on river bank plays a pivotal role in preventing the soil erosion and also maintain the soil sustenance.
During WCF event on Yamuna wetland, Sri Sri Ravishankar had asserted that organisers did not harm the ecology as no single tree were cut by them. They had just chopped wild grass under the supervision of Art of living (AOl) environment experts team.
“Yamuna floodplain area restricted within two bounds which covers area of 94.84 square kms and the rainfall, results in the lateral flow of water after attaining the bank-full level of the river channel during the rainy season. The river thus is left with limited floodplain area for inundation during monsoon. The wild grass on wetland area can prevent flood like situation by resisting the soil erosion,” said Gopal Krishan, Ecologist , Anti Toxic Watch Alliance (ATWA).
Krishan added that soil condition is adversely affected once the wild grass is eradicated on floodplains. “Soil has the capacity to absorb and store rainfall and to recycle nutrients, which provide habitat for seed germination and plant growth, and to resist erosion but if the grass grown on wetland is being eradicated then it is a threat to neighborhood habitat,” the ecologist explained.
Another Ecologist T K Roy said that the abolition of wild grass has awful impact on food chain due to pasture condition. “On any floodplain area the wild grass is responsible for the capacity to capture the solar energy and convert it to palatable green leaf for smaller animal and grassland birds. It also affects the population of aquatic grassland microorganism and many birds depend on this for their food,” he said.