Chilika Lake

This lagoon was once so choked with silt that it earned a spot on a global list of endangered wetlands. Engineers cut it a new mouth to the sea, and it became a conservation success story.

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Indian Geography · IndGeo0039

Chilika Lake: A Wetland’s Comeback

1981

Designated a Ramsar Site of international importance.

1993

Siltation chokes the sea mouth; lake placed on the Montreux Record.

2002

Removed from the Montreux Record after a new sea mouth restored the lake.

~1,100 km²

Asia’s largest brackish lagoon

400,000+ birds

Nalabana Sanctuary, each winter

7x fish catch

Increase after restoration

A conservation success story

Chilika is India’s only home to Irrawaddy dolphins — and the first Ramsar site in Asia to be removed from the Montreux Record of endangered wetlands.

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Must Know

• Chilika Lake is Asia’s largest brackish-water lagoon, spread across Odisha‘s Puri, Khordha, and Ganjam districts.
• It opens into the Bay of Bengal near Satapada, separated from the sea by a sandy barrier spit.
• The lake covers about 1,100 square kilometres during the monsoon, shrinking to roughly 900 square kilometres in the dry season.
• In 1981, Chilika became one of India’s first wetlands designated a Ramsar Site of international importance.
• Nalabana Bird Sanctuary, a 15-square-kilometre mudflat at the lake’s core, hosts over 400,000 migratory birds each winter.

Good to Know

• Chilika holds India’s only known population of Irrawaddy dolphins. It is the single largest habitat of this species anywhere in the world.
• Salinity varies across the lake, depending on how close each part is to the sea mouth and to freshwater river inflows.
• By the early 1990s, heavy siltation had choked the lake’s mouth, shrinking its water surface and letting invasive freshwater weeds spread.
• This degradation got Chilika placed on the Montreux Record in 1993, a global list of wetlands in ecological trouble.

Test Yourself

Please wait…

1. Chilika Lake, in Odisha, is best described as what?

Asia’s largest brackish-water lagoon

India’s largest freshwater lake

A saline inland desert lake

A glacial lake in the eastern Himalaya

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Great to Know

• In September 2000, engineers opened a new sea mouth, based on modelling by CWPRS Pune, restoring the lake’s tidal flow and salinity balance.
• The restoration worked. Chilika came off the Montreux Record in 2002, the first Ramsar site in Asia to be removed from it.
• Fish catches rose roughly sevenfold after restoration, benefiting more than 200,000 fishermen who depend on the lake.
• The Chilika Development Authority received the Ramsar Wetland Conservation Award in 2002 for this turnaround.