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Site description (2004 baseline):

Kheda district of central Gujarat, situated in western India, occupies 719,400 ha area, and is located between two major rivers: Mahisagar on the eastern side and Vatrak, a tributary of River Sabarmati on the western side. The southern side is attached to the Gulf of Khambhat. Major area of the district comprises of plain land, almost at sea level, except for a small area of Kapadvanj and Balasinor tehsil which are hilly (Parasharya et al. 2000). The major area of the district has canal irrigation facility and therefore irrigated farming is practised. Paddy is extensively cultivated in Kheda distict. As paddy fields are temporary wetlands, they provide an alternative to the natural marshland habitat of the Sarus Crane Grus antigone. Daloli, Gobrapura, Narda and Machhial were found to be important roosting areas for these birds (Mukherjee et al. 2002).

AVIFAUNA: This site is selected as an IBA mainly because it has good, breeding population of the globally threatened Sarus Crane in India. Sarus population of these reservoirs was estimated as follows: 1989 (556 individuals); 1998 (618 individuals); 2002 (959 individuals) (Mukherjee et al. 2002).

OTHER KEY FAUNA: As this site is basically an agricultural area, no large wild mammal is found here.

MAIN THREATS: Agricultural practices; Industrialisation and urbanisation; Alteration of habitat; Disturbance to the birds by farming activities.

Most of the natural wetlands of Kheda districts have been converted in to paddy fields, but at the same time, thanks to canal irrigation, paddy cultivation has increased to those areas where there was no paddy cultivation earlier. Parasharya et al. (2000) found significant positive correlation between percentage of land under paddy crop and Sarus Crane density. Although, Sarus Crane prefers to breed in non-cultivated agricultural marshland in the paddy crop agroecosystem (Borad et al. 2001), non-availability of marshlands compels them to breed in paddy crop fields, leading to conflict between cranes and farmers. To conserve the crane in agricultural landscapes, uniform distribution of such non-cultivable marshland and their maintenance would provide a near-natural habitat for the cranes. This would ensure successful breeding of the cranes and reduce conflict with farmers (Borad et al. 2001).

Key contributors: Aeshita Mukherjee, C.K. Borad and B. M. Parasharya.

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Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Important Bird Area factsheet: Wetlands of Kheda (India). Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/site/factsheet/wetlands-of-kheda-iba-india on 23/12/2024.