Colour of water in Maharashtra’s Lonar Lake has changed to pink. Experts attribute it to salinity and presence of algae in the water body. The 113-hectare Lonar lake also known as Lonar Crater in Buldhana district of Maharashtra was formed after a meteorite had hit the earth some 50,000 years ago. Located around 500 km from Mumbai, it is a popular tourist hub and also attracts scientists from all over the world. Of late, change in the colour of water of the lake, having a mean diameter of 1.2km, has not only surprised locals but also nature enthusiasts and scientists. Experts say this is not the first time the colour change has happened, but this time it is more glaring.
“The lake, a notified National Geo-Heritage monument has saline water with a pH of 10.5. There are algae in the water body. The salinity and algae can be responsible for this change. There is no oxygen below one meter of the lake’s water surface. There is an example of a lake in Iran, where water becomes reddish due to an increase in salinity,” said Gajanan Kharat, Member of the Lonar Lake Conservation and Development Committee. Kharat also added that the level of water in the Lonar Lake is currently low as compared to past years and there is no rain to pour fresh water in it. The low level of water may lead to increased salinity and change in the behaviour of algae because of atmospheric changes; this may be the reason for colour change. This is not the first time that the colour of water has changed.
Dr Madan Suryavanshi, head of the Geography Department of Aurangabad’s Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, said, “This can’t be human intervention”. In case of a natural phenomenon, there are fungi which generally give a greenish colour to water most of the time. The current colour change seems to be a biological change in the Lonar Crater. Season-wise changes occur in water and this might be the case with Lonar Lake. We can examine the change if we go there in a week then we can say more about the change.”
Kharat said that researchers are also investigating if the presence of red algae caused the colour change. Samples are being sent to several labs, he said, and “once they have studied it we will be able to definitively say why the lake’s water has turned red.”
