🏞 When is World Wetlands Day 2020

When is World Wetlands Day in 2020? – This is the question, which is not rather popular nowadays. As a rule, the answer to it can be given only by the representatives of definite professions or by people, dealing with environment in general and its protection in particular.

History

Of course, it would be quite silly to investigate the matter, devoted to the theme what day National Wetlands Day in 2020 is without paying attention to the historical background of this amazing special occasion.

At present this unofficial holiday is kept on February 2^nd. But the first date was spent 47 years ago, when 18 States signed the so called Ramsar Convention or the Wetlands Convention. The occasion happened in the Iranian city of Ramsar.

Nowadays the Convention has 169 member countries. The main objective of this international agreement is the conservation and rational use of these areas. The main emphasis of the convention’s signing is on the conservation of waterfowl habitats. At present, 2,231 territories, the total area of ​​which is 2.1 million square kilometers, are included in the list of these places of international importance of the Ramsar Convention.

Every year this environmental date has its topic. For example, in 2017 it was “Wetlands and Natural Disaster Risk Reduction”. The specialists underlined that the territories are unique ecosystems that not only create and sustain life on the planet, but also protect human habitats, mitigating and reducing the negative effects of natural disasters and climate change. These ecosystems are natural buffers and protective barriers in the way of elementalities.

Now the country with the largest number of lands (170) included in the convention list is the United Kingdom. And the largest area under the protection of the convention is in Bolivia – more than 140,000 square kilometers.

Meaning

What does Wetlands Day mean? – Of course, as you can understand we are not able to give the answer to this question instead of you. It is up to you to decide, whether these parts of our planet are important to us or not.

In general, in accordance with the specialists’ points of view, the areas play a very important role in the life of Earth. They prevent soil erosion by reducing the amount and intensity of dust and sand storms. Thanks to their natural structure and functions, they allow to mitigate the effects of floods, tsunamis and landslides. By storing large volumes of water, areas reduce its peak levels during the rainy season and vice versa provide maximum accumulation of water during the dry period.

All in all the ecosystems of marshes provide local people with fresh water and essential food. Thus, these places are not just a habitat for unique biodiversity but also support the livelihoods of a large number of local communities.

Definition

The discovering of the question “When is International Wetlands Day 2020?” is impossible without investigation the matter is details.

All in all the swamps have always been mysterious and mystical to the people all around the planet. Well, who hasn’t heard about the attractive flashing lights trapping the travelers into the quagmire or treasures hidden in the distant quagmire? There are a lot of legends in accordance to which the upper marshes provided protection in disastrous times.

In general for a long time, underestimated and even hated in some way landscapes are becoming increasingly valuable in our rapidly changing world. Water and land occur in the marsh, has been created a new biological community.

The contemporary scientists are sure that the territories, or marshes, in the narrowest sense, are transitional zones between land and water element, being at the same time one of the most original natural environments.

In the representation of most people, marshes are associated with mosquitoes, dirt and damp, where you can drown, and there is a fantastic evil. However, these places along with forests are the most important regenerators of oxygen, and the main value of swamps is the ability to accumulate water and improve its quality. In addition, swamps are a home to many animals. One of the main inhabitants of the marshes is waterfowl. They provide a global unity of the wetland system, migrating from one part of the world to another. Therefore, protection of marsh in the first place contributes to the conservation of birds living near water.

Traditions

When is Wetlands Day in 2020, calendar will surely remind you. We have already mentioned that the event is celebrated on February 2^nd. The date is considered to be fixed, so you can join any moment you like.

Usually there are some official programs, devoted to this day, but they are organized in definite and specialized communities, so you will have to find them in your town/city/country if you are going to be involved.

Some specialists recommend to join the pages, devoted to International Day of Wetlands celebration in the social networks. It will help you to know everything about the main events happening all around the planet.

You can also visit a local museum and discover a great number of facts, proofing why we have to protect these parts of our planet.

These areas perform many vital functions, for example:

• accumulation and storage of water;
• protection against storms and floods;
• strengthening of the coastline and containment of erosion;
• replenishment of groundwater reserves (penetration of water from wetlands down into the underground aquifer);
• underground water output (upward movement of water and its transformation into surface water in a wetland);
• water treatment;
• nutrient retention;
• sedimentation;
• retention of pollutants;
• stabilization of local climatic conditions, in particular the amount of atmospheric precipitation and temperature.

National Wetlands Day Facts

The close investigation of the question “What is the date of World Wetlands Day 2020?” seems impossible without giving our readers some important details, concerning this matter.

Typically, it is possible to find out five types of contemporary.

Here is our list:

• marine ones, represented by coastal areas. They include various coastal lagoons, different rocky shores and the variants of coral reefs;
• estuaries, which involve deltas, littoral marches and mangroves;
• a great amount of lakes. Believe you or not but the territories are connected much with lakes;
• rivers, including the areas, which are located along them and other watercourses;
• marshes (that are swamps on soil, wetlands and peat bogs.

All in all the places can be found everywhere. They are arranged from the cold or even freezing tundra to the hot tropics. It isn’t exactly known what proportion of land surface they occupy now. According to the UNEP World Environment Monitoring Center, their area is supposed to be 575 million hectares or about 7% of the planet’s surface. From this 2% are lakes, 30% upper mires, 26% lowland mires, 20% wetlands and 15% of the floodplain.

Not everybody knows that wetlands provide conditions for the development of a variety of natural resources, for example:

• water supply (quantity and quality);
• fishing (more than two-thirds of the world catch of fish are connected with the healthy state of these territories);
• agriculture, thanks to maintaining the level of groundwater and high fertility of the land in the flood plains;
• production of timber and other building materials; procurement of energy resources such as peat and wood material;
• hunting economy; transport;
• preparation of other products of these areas, including medicinal plants;
• rest and tourism.