Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has initiated process for demarcation of more than 13,000 wetlands in different parts of the state in order to ensure their proper conservation.
As per official sources, the Forest, Environment and Climate Change department has taken up ground truthing of a total of 13,667 wetlands spread over 2.25 hectares or more area. The Space Application Centre has identified the wetlands.
The step has been taken following a directive of the Supreme Court to the wetland authorities of states and union territories. These authorities were directed to complete the ground truthing and demarcation of the boundaries of each wetland identified by the Space Application Centre, Atlas (SAC, Atlas), 2021, within three months.
Following the Supreme Court judgement, the Orissa High Court also initiated a suo motu PIL in January to monitor the conservation of wetlands in the state.
The state government engaged the Chilika Development Authority (CDA) as the nodal agency to implement the wetland conservation measures.
As part of the ground truthing exercise, the officials are verifying information about the wetlands, identified through satellite imagery, by visiting the site and collecting data on the ground physically to confirm their presence in one mobile software application.
The exercise was launched following sensitisation workshop of the collectors, divisional forest officers, line departments and those having ownership of wetlands such as Water Resources, Rural Development, Housing and Urban Development, Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water departments, and Odisha Coastal Zone Management Authority, in February. The ground truthing is likely to be completed soon and then the process for demarcation of each of these wetlands will be taken up.
The states and Union territories have been asked to update their present status on the ground truthing and demarcation of wetland boundaries and upload the data in the Save Wetlands Campaign portal.
