Wetlands
Water is essential for life on Earth and a critical natural resource that underpins all social and economic activity. Ensuring water and sanitation for all is one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 6) of the 2030 Agenda. Target 6.6 specifically aims to protect and restore water-related ecosystems, including wetlands. This map shows the total area covered by inland vegetated wetlands. It includes swamps, marshes, peatlands, bogs and fens, the vegetated parts of floodplains as well as rice paddies and flood recession agriculture.
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Wetlands area: Total wetlands area in square kilometers per country - forming a baseline measurement comprising three years of data (2016-18) - is available for download. The wetlands extent data is available at national, subnational and basin levels. Future annual data measurements will allow for a calculation of change against the generated baseline. Source: The wetlands area measurements have been developed by DHI-GRAS.
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The SDG indicator 6.6.1 definition of wetlands refers to only a specific group of inland vegetated wetlands typologies: marshes, peatlands, swamps, bogs and fens, the vegetated parts of floodplains as well as rice paddies and flood recession agriculture. It does not apply the definition of wetlands by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (areas of marsh, fen, peatland or water, whether natural or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or salt, including areas of marine water the depth of which at low tide does not exceed six meters) that can be interpreted to mean all water within a country including the marine environment. Coastal mangroves are not included in this dataset.
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