User:Nadeem kasuri 19780

Neela Hauz Biodiversity Park of Dehli is a small biodiversity park of 10 acres land attached with Sanjay Van Forest on Aruna Asaf Ali Marg road in the middle of south Delhi. Initially, due to its surrounding natural depression, there was a lake supposedly once was water supply of a 12th century old Fort and a halt enroute to Delhi. It used to supply of drinking water  to south Dehli. This biodiversity combined with attached forest is crucial for maintaining the ecological balance of south Delhi.

Restoration Work
After the construction of Aruna Asaf Ali Marg road in 2008, the lake turned into dumping ground of its flyover debris. By the efforts of locals and a court decision, it was handed over to Delhi Development Authority (DDA) in November 2016. With the help of a cost free and electricity-free Constructed Wetlands system, deserted lake was converted to a 20 feet deep artificial wetland filling by one million litres fresh water. The water in the lake comes through a nearby sewage treatment plant, flows through a stone-gravel filter to remove large solid particles, then into the filter beds of the wetland and finally into the Hauz. After the renovation of the area, there were many improvements up till now such as the PH value of lake water has dropped from 7.8 to 6.78. Bio-chemical Oxygen Demand reduced from 40 to 4.0; Chemical Oxygen Demand reduced from 80 to 0.7; Dissolved Oxygen went up from 0 to 3.4; Phosphates reduced from 103 to 14 and Total Dissolved Solids reduced from 600 to 298.

Fauna and flora
The park is now home of more than 70 bird species including some migratory birds such as eurasian hoopoe, little  slint,  coppersmith  barbet, bluethroat and common  starling etc. More than twenty different kind of aquatic plants like Typha, Pharagmites, Alternanthera, Ipomoea, Solanum etc are helpful in cleansing the toxic water of lake.There are also some rare shrubs such as Lycium, Copparis aphylla and balanites etc.

Visit
It is good place for morning walks, recreation and study tours. Visitors are advised to wear shoes and full-length trousers as protection against the thorny shrubbery and snakes and to take sufficient fluids and snacks with them as there is no shop nearby.