Present Status, Conservation, and Management of Wetlands in India

Abstract

Among various types of aquatic ecosystems, wetland is highly productive and efficient one which provides direct as well as indirect services to human beings. And these services of wetland ecosystem account around fifty percent of the overall global ecosystem values and ranks first among all of them. The ever-growing needs for freshwater have exerted great pressure on wetland ecosystem. Also, in last few decades, a bunch of activities such as accelerated urbanization, industrialization, technological advancement in agricultural sectors along with changed land use pattern have unfortunately threatened the uniqueness of wetlands and affected their ecological, economical, and biological identity. Due to various natural and anthropogenic activities, wetland occupied areas throughout the world are decreasing and declining its water quality. Indian wetlands cover around 4.1 million hectares (excluding irrigated agricultural lands, rivers, and streams) of land area, from which 1.5 million hectares are natural and 2.6 million hectares are man-made. Interest in sustainable use and adaptive management of wetlands has increased in the last few years. Based on the available information, wetlands are facing problems like inadequate information and uneven management of these valuable systems. A conceptual framework is highly required for wetland management which should include all the major issues affecting the wetland status, trends, management scenario and related responses, technical input and data management, respectively. This paper mainly reviews the present status, conservation and management plans for Indian wetlands concentrating on various threats and their possible sources to wetland regions and also focuses to investigate major factors responsible for overutilization of wetland wealth and various management practices for their present and future usage in sustainable way.