Inventorisation, Status and Community-Based Management of Wetlands in the Eastern Mawryngkneng Community and Rural Development Block, Meghalaya, Northeast India

Abstract

Small inland wetlands in the hill states of Northeast India remain largely undocumented because they fall below the minimum mapping unit of national wetland inventories and below the notification thresholds of the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017. In 2025 the Government of Meghalaya reported to the High Court of Meghalaya that, of 225 water bodies inspected across the state, none qualified as a Ramsar site. Such an assessment, however, says nothing about the ecological and cultural significance of these systems for the communities that depend on them. This study presents a village-level inventory of wetlands in the eastern part of the Mawryngkneng Community and Rural Development (C&RD) Block, East Khasi Hills district, Meghalaya. One hundred wetlands were geotagged and classified, a structured household survey (n = 100) was administered across the villages of the study area, faunal and wetland-associated plant use was documented through free listing, and land use–land cover (LULC) change between 2020 and 2024 was analysed using Sentinel-2 derived 10 m land cover data. Springs (42 records) and streams (41 records) dominated the inventory, and 82% of the wetlands were perennial. Water (37%) and fish (34%) were the most valued resources, and fishing, agriculture and domestic water supply were the principal reported uses. Twenty-nine per cent of respondents reported the local disappearance of aquatic species, 45% had personally witnessed wetland destruction, and 32% perceived a decline in water levels, yet 48% reported no threat to their wetlands, indicating a shifting baseline in local perception. Built-up area within the block expanded from approximately 7.5% to 10.7% of the block area between 2020 and 2024, largely at the expense of rangeland. Ninety per cent of respondents supported wetland protection and 66% held that responsibility should rest with the community, but 74% had never participated in any conservation activity and 71% were unaware of any wetland programme or scheme. A SWOT analysis indicates that strong customary institutions, high biocultural dependence and expressed willingness to act constitute the principal opportunity for conservation, while the absence of formal recognition, monitoring and enforcement constitutes the principal risk. We argue for a decentralised, village-register-based approach to wetland recognition in Meghalaya, anchored in the customary authority of the Dorbar Shnong and supported by GIS documentation.

Introduction

The study investigates the wetlands of the eastern Mawryngkneng Community and Rural Development (C&RD) Block in East Khasi Hills, Meghalaya, focusing on their distribution, ecological importance, community dependence, biodiversity, and conservation under customary governance. Wetlands are defined according to the Ramsar Convention (1971) as diverse ecosystems including marshes, peatlands, ponds, streams, rivers, and shallow water bodies. Although wetlands provide critical ecosystem services such as water purification, flood regulation, groundwater recharge, biodiversity conservation, and carbon storage, they are rapidly disappearing worldwide because of land-use change, pollution, and hydrological alterations.

Unlike many Indian states, Meghalaya currently has no Ramsar-designated wetland. Although surveys have identified numerous water bodies across the state, none meet the international criteria for Ramsar designation. Consequently, many small but ecologically important wetlands, such as springs, streams, ponds, and paddy-field wetlands, remain outside formal legal protection despite their importance to local communities. Since most land in Meghalaya is owned and managed through customary institutions such as the Dorbar Shnong, wetland conservation depends largely on community stewardship rather than government regulation.

The study aimed to identify and map wetlands, assess human impacts, understand community dependence and perceptions, document wetland biodiversity, analyze land-use changes, and develop conservation strategies suitable for community-managed landscapes.

The research was conducted across 21 villages in the eastern Mawryngkneng Block using field surveys, GPS mapping, GIS analysis, household interviews, biodiversity documentation, and land-use change analysis. A total of 100 wetland sites were geotagged and classified into ten locally adapted categories including springs, streams, ponds, rivers, paddy-field wetlands, streamlets, swamps, lakes, peatlands, and man-made ponds. Because some wetlands possessed multiple characteristics, 113 typological records were documented.

The inventory revealed that springs (42 records) and streams (41 records) dominate the wetland landscape, together accounting for approximately 73% of all wetland types. Ponds, rivers, swamps, paddy-field wetlands, streamlets, lakes, and peatlands occurred in much smaller numbers. Most wetlands (82%) were perennial, reflecting the spring-fed hydrology of the Khasi Hills, while seasonal wetlands were mainly associated with agricultural fields, swamps, and smaller ponds.

Household surveys showed that wetlands support a wide range of livelihood activities. The most common uses included fishing, agriculture, drinking water, and washing, while some wetlands also served cultural and community functions. When asked to identify the most valuable wetland resource, respondents primarily selected water and fish, indicating that wetlands are valued both as essential water sources and as providers of food and livelihoods.

The study also documented local perceptions of wetland biodiversity through free-listing interviews. Respondents identified 34 animal taxa associated with wetlands, including fishes, birds, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and aquatic invertebrates. Fish were the most frequently mentioned group, with species such as snakehead, catla, and rohu commonly recognized. The presence of introduced aquaculture species alongside native hill-stream fishes suggests that stocked fish have become increasingly dominant while some indigenous species are becoming less commonly encountered.

Conclusion

The wetlands of the eastern Mawryngkneng C&RD Block support biodiversity, fisheries, agriculture and domestic water supply for every village in which they occur, and they do so without any formal recognition, management plan or monitoring system. One hundred wetlands were geotagged and classified in an area for which the state inventory records essentially none, and the community that depends on them holds detailed knowledge of their flora, fauna and hydrology, endorses their protection almost unanimously, and considers itself - rather than the state - the appropriate custodian. What is missing is neither knowledge nor will. It is the institutional apparatus of recognition: registers, boundaries, monitoring, and a rule-making forum. The combination of GIS documentation with the existing customary authority of the Dorbar Shnong offers a route to that apparatus that is both administratively cheap and socially legitimate. This study contributes the documentation; the argument it makes is that village-level wetland inventories of this kind, replicated across the C&RD blocks of Meghalaya, would give the state a wetland map that corresponds to the wetlands that actually exist. Future work should extend the inventory to the western half of the block, add physicochemical characterisation of water and sediment, and establish the seasonal monitoring baseline against which future change can be measured.

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Copyright

Copyright © 2026 Anamika Upadhaya, Wanpyndapbiang Nongrang, Shikhar Kumar. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.