Happy World Wetlands Day: 'Wetlands For Disaster Risk Reduction'

World Wetlands Day referred to as Ramsar Convention is commemorated every year on Feb. 2. Its theme for 2017 is "Wetlands for Disaster Risk Reduction." It aims to raise awareness the purpose and need of wetlands on the planet Earth.

Wetlands are land areas that are drenched with water permanently or seasonally. Most wetlands have vegetation of aquatic plants that differ them from other land forms or water bodies. They are considered the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems. They serve as habitats for various plant and animal lives.

Wetlands could reduce the impacts of floods, droughts and cyclones in the communities. They could also purify the water and make shoreline stable. Among the wetland types are marshes, swamps, fens and bogs. The sub-types include carr, mangrove, varzea and pocosin.

This type of land area could be visible on all continents except Antarctica. The largest wetlands are the West Siberian Plain, Amazon River basin and the Pantanal in South America.

According to UNESCO, the World Heritage Convention conserves these endangered ecosystems. These include the Sundarbans National Park in India and the Sundarbans in Bangladesh, which have the largest area of mangroves in the world. The mangroves prevent flooding and act as buffers against saltwater intrusion and erosion, while some types of wetlands reduce the risk of drought.

The #Okavango Delta - one of the world's most important wetlands for wildlife #WorldWetlandsDay #botswana pic.twitter.com/Ls7p29iLvD

— David Nash (@davidjnash) February 2, 2017

One of the wetlands in the world is the Okavango Delta in Bostwana, a World Heritage Site, and is considered one of the most important wetlands in the world. It comprises of swamps that have the area of 15,000 sq km during a dry season. It is inhabited by some of the world's most endangered species of large mammals.