Water Quality Assessment & Willingness to Pay in Wetland Conservation: a Case of Baral Danda Lake Complex, Kaski, Nepal

The wetlands serve as the best possible gift of nature to human because of its prominent ecosystem services and values. These wetlands are however exhausted by different natural and anthropogenic activities. The anthropogenic activities to the wetlands self explains the reason of its degradation being as a center of attraction for people. But there are also many unnoticed and unaware wetlands which are silently degrading and disappearing along the pace of time. This work, therefore, attempts to know the situation of such unnoticed lakes in Kaski, Nepal where other most touted lakes also resides. This work tries to study the reason of degradation from the analysis of physico-chemical aspects of lake water and local people's attitude in lake conservation. Hence the work could help in urging out the need of wetland conservation through its analysis. This work, could be helpful to the scholars interested in wetlands; the environmentalists, limnologists, conservationists and economists or any one else who may be considering wetland as a precious asset and should be conserved.