From Drivers to Responses: Local Insights and National Frameworks for Restoring Urban Lakes in Bengaluru

Urban lake ecosystems in rapidly growing cities face multiple, interlinked pressures. This article examines how these pressures are understood and addressed in research and practice by synthesising 413 academic, policy, and practitioner studies on lake degradation and restoration in the Bengaluru region, India. Using Content Configuration Analysis, we pursue four lines of inquiry: typifying dominant research approaches; mapping how major drivers—climate change, urbanisation, expanding consumption, and governance fragmentation—generate pressures; analysing sewage treatment plants (STPs) as responses that can themselves become new stressors; and comparing national restoration guidelines with locally developed strategies. Our analysis shows that lake problems are frequently framed as discrete technical issues, whereas degradation operates through recursive driver–pressure–response dynamics that cut across ecological, institutional, and social domains. The STP cases illustrate this mismatch, where mandated solutions can generate unintended pressures when institutional capability or ecological integration is weak. Comparisons between national guidelines and locally grounded practices reveal broad alignment in restoration principles but persistent gaps remain in implementation capacity, coordination, financing, and integration with land-use and urban resilience planning. Based on our analyses, we argue for reconceptualising urban lakes as complex socioecological systems rather than bounded technical units. Such a perspective supports restoration strategies that are nationally coherent yet locally attuned, strengthening ecological function, social equity, and urban resilience. More broadly, the findings contribute to debates on the restoration and governance of urban water bodies by demonstrating how national policy frameworks can be reinforced through locally grounded socioecological knowledge.