Scarp Ponds of Cholistan Desert: Impacts on Vegetation and Birds

SCARPs, the Salinity Control and Reclamation Projects were implemented in Pakistan to recover the fertile agricultural lands lost to water-logging and salinity by draining accumulated effluents to the sea through a system of canals leading to the rivers in most of the cases. In one of the SCARPs, however, it was proposed to store the effluents in the natural depressions of the bed of the extinct Hakra River to evaporate under the hot and dry environment of Cholistan Desert. Thus, a system of brackish ponds was created with different ponds at different stages of ecological transformation, also an important wintering and staging habitat for water birds migrating along the Indus Flyway and those occurring locally. Realizing importance of the SCARP ponds, this book provides some insight into the changes in vegetation and bird fauna of the surrounding desert area triggered by this new habitat, assessed through diversity indices, CA and CCA analyses and therefore equally useful for those interested in plant, bird and wetland ecology and any one else interested in impacts of anthropogenic changes and development on the natural environments.