Setting
The East Deccan dry evergreen forests cover lie in the rain shadow of the Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats, which block the rain-bearing summer southwest monsoon.
The ecoregion covers an area of 25,500 square kilometers (9,800 sq mi), extending from Ramanathapuram District of Tamil Nadu to Nellore District of Andhra Pradesh. Much of the ecoregion is densely settled, and has been substantially altered by human activity, including agriculture, grazing, and forestry, over the centuries. The ecoregion is home to the metropolis of Chennai (Madras), and a number of other cities, including Pondicherry, Thanjavur, Kanchipuram and Nellore. It is estimated that 95% of the original forest cover has been cleared, and the species composition of the remaining forests have been altered by intensive human use including the removal of all the taller trees.
Rainfall averages 800 mm/year, and mostly falls during the highly variable northeast monsoon between October and December. Unlike most of the world's tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests, whose trees tend to lose their leaves during the dry season to conserve moisture, the East Deccan dry evergreen forests retain their leaves year round. Only two other ecoregions exhibit a similar pattern, the Sri Lanka dry-zone dry evergreen forests and the Southeastern Indochina dry evergreen forests.
The ecoregion is home to two important wetlands, Kaliveli Lake north of Pondicherry in Viluppuram District of Tamil Nadu, and Pulicat Lake north of Chennai. Kaliveli lake is one of the largest wetlands in peninsular India, and is deemed a wetland of national and international importance by the IUCN. It is a seasonal wetland, with a gradient from freshwater to brackish water, and is an important feeding and breeding ground on migratory bird flyway. It is currently threatened by encroachment by agricultural fields, wildlife poaching, loss of the surrounding forests, and increases in commercial prawn farming.
Read more about this topic: East Deccan Dry Evergreen Forests
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