Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 2.18
Variation of
zooplankton size
the highest species diversity found in Indonesia
with 45 species, followed by Malaysia (36 spe-
cies) and Thailand (35 species). India is no less in
terms of the number of mangrove species (34
species of true mangroves) and hence is consid-
ered as one of the mega biodiversity countries in
the world.
The total global coverage of mangroves has
been variously estimated as 14
15 million hect-
ares (Schwamborn and Saint-Paul
1996
), 10 mil-
lion hectares (Bunt
1992
) and 24 million hectares
(Twilley et al.
1992
). Spalding et al. (
1997
) gave a
recent estimation of global mangrove coverage
around 18 million hectares with 42.4 % in South
-
