National Wetland Decadal Change Atlas released
Recently the National Wetland Decadal Change Atlas has been released. The title of this atlas has been kept as “National Wetland Inventory and Assessment -2008-07 and 2017-18”.
It has been developed by ISRO’s Space Applications Center (SAC). It depicts changes in wetlands across the country over the past decade.
The original atlas was released by SAC in the year 2011. It has been widely used by all the State Governments in their planning processes over the years.
Key findings:
- The total area of all wetlands in the country at the national level is estimated at 15.98 million hectares. It is about 4.86 percent of the total geographical area of the country.
- Among the different types of wetlands, more than a third of the total wetlands are covered by rivers (35.2 percent). Another 43 per cent of the wetland area is jointly covered by reservoirs (17.1 per cent).
- Most of the increase in wetland area over the past decade has been recorded in the inland man-made (81.5 percent), and coastal artificial (17.0 percent) categories.
- Coastal natural wetlands have declined. These have mostly been converted into coastal man-made ranges.
- There has also been an increase in the area of mangroves and coral reefs.
About wetlands:
- According to the Ramsar Convention, wetlands are natural or artificial, permanent or temporary wetlands, peat-lands or water area (whose water is stagnant or flowing, fresh, saline or saline).
- It also includes those stretches of seawater whose depth does not exceed six meters during low tide.
- The Wetlands (Protection and Management) Rules, 2017 have been implemented for the conservation and management of wetlands in India.
Source – The Hindu
