Grasslands of Arid Kachchh, India: Present Status and Management Strategies for Higher Productivity

The hot arid region covers an area of 31.70 million hectares in India, covering seven states that include Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra. The arid region in Gujarat is distributed in eight districts namely, Kachchh (100% of the district area), Jamnagar (80%), Surenderanagar (29%), Junagadh (20%), Banaskantha (18%), Mehsana (7%), Ahmadabad (6%) and Rajkot (6%). Gujarat accounts for 19.6% of the total arid zone in the country of which Kachchh district alone accounts for more than 70% arid area of the state (Shamsudheen et al., 2009). Under the conditions of low and erratic precipitation, high evapotranspiration and poor soil physical and fertility conditions, grasses and trees form the major vegetation that make natural rangelands and hence grasslands form one of the major ecosystem types in Kachchh. There are two major unique grassland ecosystems in Kachchh, namely Banni and Naliya. Banni, once referred as Asia`s finest grasslands cover an area of 2,617.72 km2 constituting 51.56% grassland area in Kachchh whereas Naliya grassland is covered in 654 km2 (12.89%) (GEER GUIDE, 2011). Banni alone constitute 45% of the permanent pasture and 10% of the grazing land available in Gujarat state (Patel, 2013). However these grasslands are under degraded condition due to biotic and abiotic factors including climatic factors, overgrazing, invasion of Prosopis juliflora, construction of dams and salinity ingress (Dayal et al., 2009b). To revive the grasslands introduction of native and potential alternate grasses are needed along with scientific management practices (Dayal et al., 2009a). The objective of this paper is to highlight the current status of research findings on measures to improve grassland productivity of rangelands in Kachahh region