World wet-land day on 2nd February

To mark the adoption of the Convention of Wetlands in Ramsar, a city in Iran where it was held in 1971, the second of February is celebrated as the World Wet- land day. This year theme accepted universally is "Wetlands and water management". The aim of celebrating this day is mainly for creating awareness among the people about the interdependence between water and wetlands. One cannot exist without the other.
Wetlands are very fragile at the same time as far as Kerala State is concerned it forms part of its cultural and socio-economic life. An estimated number of wetlands in Kerala (in the year 2010) is 1,762 and additionally 2,592 smaller (less than 2.25 ha. in area) ones are also there. The major types of wetlands in Kerala are rivers or streams (65,162 ha – 41 %), lagoons (38,442 ha – 24%), reservoirs (26,167 ha – 17%) and water logged areas (20,305 ha – 13%). the remaining are lakes/ponds (2%), Tanks/ponds (2%) and sand/beach (1%). The wetlands support more than twenty percent of the biodiversity of Kerala.
Alappuzha district has the maximum area of wetlands with 26,079 ha followed by Ernakulam (25,065 ha), Kollam (13,703 ha) and Thrissur (13,285 ha). Wayanad district comes in the last position with just 3,866 ha.