India’s Ramsar Wetlands: Key Aquatic Ecosystems and Their Significance
摘要
Wetland ecosystems have observed more than a seventy percent decline worldwide in the last 100 years. It significantly impacts the distinctive biodiversity sustained across these sites and the livelihood of the communities across these sites. Presently, these sites observe several threats like human alterations of the catchment, over-exploitation of resources, pollution, and climate change across these sites. In observance of these threats, countries across Europe initiated the Project MAR and Wildfowl meeting to conserve this aquatic ecosystem. It paved the way for the Ramsar Convention in 1971, which later on identified the sites of global importance for the sustenance of biodiversity and human well-being. The significance of Ramsar sites and their site management plan provides the pathway for the conservation of these sites across India. In order to conserve these ecosystems, real-time monitoring of the threats across these sites is required with the integration of emerging technologies. It will assist in developing early warning systems to identify pollution events, invasive species outbreaks, changes in water levels, and wetland health. It will assist in providing precise alerts to the concerned stakeholders for emerging threats and provide an opportunity for rapid intervention to mitigate impacts on wetland ecosystems through timely actions.