India has a rich variety of wetland habitats. There are coastal lagoons and tidal marshes, mangroves and swamp forests, and several smaller depressions which support fresh water and half-fresh water habitats.
These diverse systems support a wealth of animals and plants, many of which cannot be seen anywhere else in the country.
Two sites — Chilika Lake (Odisha) and Keoladeo National Park (Bharatpur) are protected as water-fowl habitats under the Convention of Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar Convention).
The country’s wetlands have been grouped into eight categories, viz.
- the reservoirs of the Deccan Plateau in the south together with the lagoons and other wetlands of the southern west coast.
- the vast saline expanses of Rajasthan, Gujarat and the Gulf of Kachchh
- freshwater lakes and reservoirs from Gujarat eastwards through Rajasthan (Keoladeo National Park) and Madhya Pradesh.
- the delta wetlands and lagoons of India’s east coast (Chilika Lake).
- the freshwater marshes of the Gangetic Plain.
