India’s ‘National Wetland Decadal Change Atlas’ was released on World Wetlands Day 2022 on 2 February. Formally named as ‘Space-Based Observation of Indian Wetlands’, the Atlas is documentation of wetlands across India, especially regarding the changes from 2006-07 till 2017-18. According to the updated Wetlands Atlas, there has been an addition of 14,823 new wetlands with an area of 0.36 million hectares (Mha) between 2006-07 and 2017-18, while a total of 1342 wetlands covering an area of 0.025 Mha have disappeared. India has the largest land area among the eight south Asian countries. It is home to 757,000 wetlands with a total wetland area of 15.3 Mha, accounting for nearly 4.7% of the total geographical area of the country. However, around 340 wetlands have ‘disappeared’ between 2007 and 2018, according to the Atlas. Natural wetlands saw losses in area while human-made ones increased.
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