Ramsar Sites in India: 103 Wetlands, the Ramsar Convention and Wetland Conservation

Ramsar Sites in India: 103 Wetlands of International Importance

Growth Since 2014 and the 2026 Additions

India's list has grown almost fourfold since 2014, when it held 26 sites. Eleven wetlands were added in 2025 alone, taking the total to 96, and 2026 has added seven more, bringing it to 103.

Each new site has its own value. Glaw Lake, an Eastern Himalayan lake fed by mountain streams, has over 150 tree species and 49 orchid species in its catchment. Sukhna shelters Pallas's fish eagle, the common pochard and the black pond turtle, and Sauj Jheel regularly holds more than 30,000 waterbirds, among them the sarus crane and the greater spotted eagle.

State-Wise Ramsar Sites: Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and the Rest

Tamil Nadu has the most Ramsar sites, 20, followed by Uttar Pradesh with 14, four of them added in 2026. Bihar, Odisha and Punjab have six each, and 12 States and Union Territories have one each.

• First sites: Chilika Lake in Odisha and Keoladeo National Park in Rajasthan, designated on 1 October 1981.
• Largest: The Sundarban Wetland in West Bengal, designated on 30 January 2019, at 4,23,000 hectares, with over 60 per cent of India's mangrove area.
• Smallest: Renuka Wetland in Himachal Pradesh and the Vembannur Wetland Complex in Tamil Nadu, 20 hectares each.
• Unusual: Lonar Lake in Maharashtra, a meteorite impact crater lake; Loktak Lake in Manipur, with floating phumdis that shelter the sangai deer.
• Inside a tiger reserve: Sakhya Sagar, one of Madhya Pradesh's five sites, is a reservoir in Madhav National Park in Shivpuri district, next to Kuno; Madhav became India's 58th tiger reserve in March 2025.
• Wetland Cities: Indore and Udaipur became India's first Ramsar-accredited Wetland Cities in January 2025.

Ramsar Convention: Wetland Definition, Three Pillars and Criteria

History, Wetland Definition and the Three Pillars

The Ramsar Convention, formally the Convention on Wetlands, is one of the international conventions on biodiversity, an intergovernmental treaty adopted at Ramsar in Iran on 2 February 1971 and in force since 1975. In October 2026 it had 172 Contracting Parties and more than 2,500 Ramsar sites worldwide, and the Director General of UNESCO is its depositary. India became a Party on 1 February 1982.

The Convention defines wetlands broadly as areas of marsh, fen, peatland or water, natural or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or salt, including marine water no deeper than six metres at low tide. It groups them into inland, coastal and human-made wetlands, which is why a reservoir such as Sukhna can be a Ramsar site as much as a natural lake.

• Wise use: Every wetland in a country, not only its listed sites, is to be used wisely, keeping its ecological character while people continue to depend on it.
• Designation and management: Parties list suitable wetlands as Ramsar sites and manage them well.
• Cooperation: Countries work together, since wetlands and the birds that use them cross borders.

World Wetlands Day falls on 2 February, the date the treaty was signed; its 2026 theme was wetlands and traditional knowledge. At the Convention's 15th Conference of Parties at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, India's resolution on promoting sustainable lifestyles for the wise use of wetlands was adopted.

Ramsar Criteria and How a Wetland Is Designated in India

A wetland becomes a Wetland of International Importance by meeting at least one of nine criteria. One criterion covers wetland types and eight cover biological diversity, through threatened species, waterbirds, fish and other animals.

In India a wetland is designated in three steps:

1. Proposal: The State Government or Union Territory Administration identifies a suitable wetland.
2. Approval: The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change approves it and sends the proposal to the Ramsar Secretariat.
3. After designation: The site is deemed notified under the Wetlands Rules, 2017, should get an integrated management plan, and its Ramsar Information Sheet must be updated every six years.

Designation brings recognition, access to international standards and expert advice, and links to the Convention's small grants. It does not, by itself, create a separate legal regime in Indian law; it commits India to keep the wetland's ecological character through its own environmental laws.

Montreux Record: Ramsar Sites Under Threat

The Montreux Record is a register of Ramsar sites where changes in ecological character have occurred, are occurring or are likely to occur as a result of technological developments, pollution or other human interference. It marks a wetland for priority attention, monitoring and remedial action. Sites are added in consultation with the country concerned and removed once remedial measures succeed.

• On the record: Keoladeo National Park in Rajasthan and Loktak Lake in Manipur.
• Taken off: Chilika Lake was removed in 2002 after restoration, and the Chilika Development Authority later won the Ramsar Wetland Conservation Award; Chilika now supports 118 fish species and the Irrawaddy dolphin.
• A different list: Keoladeo is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, declared in 1985 for its birds, which has nothing to do with the Montreux Record.

Wetlands in India: Functions, Losses and Threats

Wetland Types and Functions: The Kidneys of the Earth

India has a rich variety of wetland habitats; about 70 per cent of its wetland area is under paddy cultivation. The country's wetlands fall into eight broad groups:

• Deccan and the southern west coast: The reservoirs of the Deccan Plateau, with the lagoons and wetlands of the southern west coast.
• Western saline belt: The vast saline expanses of Rajasthan, Gujarat and the Gulf of Kachchh.
• Central India: Freshwater lakes and reservoirs from Gujarat through Rajasthan (Keoladeo) and Madhya Pradesh.
• East coast: The delta wetlands and lagoons, such as Chilika.
• Gangetic Plain: The freshwater marshes of the plain.
• Brahmaputra and the North-East: The Brahmaputra floodplains and the marshes and swamps of the north-eastern hills and Himalayan foothills.
• Kashmir and Ladakh: The lakes and rivers of the mountain region.
• Andaman and Nicobar Islands: The mangroves and wetlands of the island arcs.

Wetlands link land and water. They store fresh water, recharge groundwater, buffer floods and sustain fisheries and farming, and they shelter migratory birds and rich biodiversity, which makes them among the most productive ecosystems on Earth. Indian Ramsar sites show these functions at work:

• East Kolkata Wetlands: About 4,000 hectares of fish ponds treat the city's wastewater naturally, yield about 10,500 tonnes of fish a year and support about 50,000 people.
• Sundarban: Mangroves shield inland areas from cyclones, tidal surges and saltwater intrusion and serve as nurseries for fish along the east coast.
• Beas Conservation Reserve: India's only known population of the endangered Indus river dolphin; 47 gharials released since 2017.
• Khichan: More than 22,000 demoiselle cranes winter each year on 54 hectares, protected by the villagers.

Wetlands are often called the kidneys of the Earth because they clean water. Wetland plants slow the flow and trap sediment, along with the heavy metals it carries, and remove excess nutrients such as nitrates and phosphorus. That cleansing role, more than the water cycle or the food chain, is what the comparison with kidneys describes.

Many sites, such as Shekha Jheel and Sukhna, are stopovers on the Central Asian Flyway, the route of migratory birds between northern breeding grounds and wintering grounds in India.

Threats to Indian Wetlands: Encroachment, Pollution and Disputes

Nearly 40 per cent of India's wetlands have vanished over the last three decades, and about half of those left show signs of ecological degradation. Wetlands sit where land, water and development meet, so they are both valuable and vulnerable.

• Encroachment: Land conversion for housing, roads and real estate, often on old maps that no longer match the ground.
• Water flows: Dams, embankments, sand mining and groundwater extraction change the timing and flow of water a wetland depends on.
• Pollution: Untreated sewage, industrial effluent, farm runoff and solid waste cause eutrophication.
• Coasts: Mangroves and lagoons are squeezed between development on land and rising seas.
• Capacity: State wetland authorities are often understaffed and underfunded.

The disputes of 2026 show these pressures at listed sites. A warehouse fire in January exposed illegal construction on the East Kolkata Wetlands; villagers opposed a solar project about 500 metres from Chhari Dhand; the Wildlife Institute of India rejected a greenfield airport near Chilika in April because migratory birds pose a risk to flights; and claims of private land inside the Pallikaranai marsh boundary in Chennai were contested.

Wetland Conservation in India: Rules, Schemes and Court Orders

Wetlands Rules 2017, NPCA, Amrit Dharohar and MISHTI

The Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017, notified under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, are the legal framework. They set up State and Union Territory Wetlands Authorities and prohibit activities such as encroachment, waste dumping and the discharge of untreated effluent. They replaced the 2010 Rules, which had listed prohibited activities in detail, required prior approval in a wetland's zone of influence and mandated impact assessments; the 2017 Rules dropped that list and shifted most of the work to the States.

Supreme Court on Wetlands: The Asan Order and the Rule 2(g) Challenge

The courts have filled gaps the Rules leave open. Neither the Convention nor the 2017 Rules prescribe a buffer around Ramsar sites. On 14 February 2024 the Supreme Court ordered that no mining take place within 10 km of the Asan Wetland Conservation Reserve in Uttarakhand, a Ramsar site since 2020, without permission from the Standing Committee of the National Board for Wildlife or the Environment Ministry; in August 2026 it clarified that the same principle applies to wetland conservation reserves across the country.

In May 2026 the Court issued notice on a petition challenging the definition of wetlands in Rule 2(g) of the 2017 Rules. The definition excludes waterbodies built for drinking water, irrigation, aquaculture, salt production and recreation, and the petitioners argue that this breaks India's obligations under the Convention, which covers natural and artificial wetlands alike, and would strip protection from many human-made Ramsar sites.

Ramsar Sites UPSC Relevance: GS Paper III Environment

Wetlands and the Ramsar Convention in the UPSC and PCS Syllabus

Ramsar sites belong to General Studies Paper III, under conservation and environment, and to Paper I geography. State PCS papers ask about the sites in their own State, so the State-wise list matters as much as the national count.

• Prelims facts: 103 sites on 15 October 2026; Tamil Nadu 20, Uttar Pradesh 14; first sites Chilika and Keoladeo (1981); largest Sundarban; Convention of 2 February 1971, India a Party since 1982; Montreux Record sites Keoladeo and Loktak.
• Concepts: Wise use, ecological character, the nine criteria, the Montreux Record, Wetland Cities, the kidneys of the Earth.
• Mains analysis: Listing against real protection, the 2017 Rules and their challenge, schemes such as NPCA, and communities as custodians.