Ghâts Western

The Western Ghâts or Sahyadrî are a chain of Montagne which borders the plate of Dekkan in India, and separate the plate from the narrow coastal plain of the Mer of Oman.

Geography

The chain starts in the south of the river Tâptî close to the border between the Goujerat and the Maharashtra, and is held, on some 1600 kilometers, through the States of Maharashtra, Goa, the Karnataka, the Kerala, and the Tamil Nadu, to the southernmost point of the Indian Péninsule, with the Cape Comorin. Its average altitude is of 1000 meters and its most raised tops, in the northern part of the chain, in Maharashtra, are the Kalsubai 1646 m, the Mahabaleshwar 1438 m and the Harishchandragarh 1424 m and in the southern part, the Kudremukh with 1862 m, in Karnataka, and the Anai Mudi in Kerala with 2695 m, which in is its culminating point.

The perforated of Palghat (Palakkat), located between the Nîlgîri at north and the Anaimalai at the south, broad of about thirty kilometers, is the only important master key in the Western ghâts, it makes it possible to connect the Tamil Nadu to Kerala. More modest chains of dimensions, like Nîlgîri in the North-West of Tamil Nadu and the Biligirirangan in the south-east of Karnataka close to Chennai, join Shevaroy - or chains Servarayan - and chains it Tirumalai, connecting the Western ghâts to the Eastern ghâts. They are used as important corridors for fauna, making it possible species like the elephant S to move of a châines of ghâts to the other.

The septentrional part of the Western coastal plain is called Côte of Konkan or simply Konkan while the southernmost part names the Malabar Coast. Eastern Piedmont of Sahyadrî in Maharashtra is known under the name of Desh, whereas that of the central state of Karnataka is known like the area of Malnad. The principal city in the middle of the mountains is Pune, in Desh in the west of the chain.

Sahyadrî form a barrier for the winds of Mousson carrying rain, coming from the west, which they cool while they go up along its mountainous slopes and that they release from their moisture in rain. The dense forests also contribute to precipitations in the sector while contributing to the condensation of the winds in charge of moisture rising sea, and by releasing most of moisture present in the air by evapotranspiration, moisture which condenses again and falls down in rain.

The Western frontage receives much more rain than the Eastern frontage and the Western ghâts are considerably wetter than arid Dekkan in the east. The Western ghâts forms the most important watershed of the Indian peninsula, the abundant rain generating of many torrents, causing many water falls and giving birth as well to the short coastal rivers of the Western frontage which are thrown in the sea of Oman as to the large rivers, like the Godâvarî, the Krishnâ, the Kâverî and their affluents, which unroll their water on the plate of Dekkan and are thrown in the Bay of Bengal. Several of these torrents and rivers are threatened of pollution by mining industry, agriculture, waste water urban and other human activities.

Ecology and écorégions

Formerly, the Western ghâts were covered by dense forests. In the south, they always shelter the only virgin forest of southernmost India. These forests are the habitat of an interesting and various fauna and a flora, whose species are related with those of the Southeast Asia, but which are threatened more and more by the human activity. Several protected national parks and sectors are in the chain, but it is estimated that today only a negligible fraction of the Western ghâts still resembles in its primitive state.

The biogéographes for a long time recognized the specificity of the local flora and fauna. Many species of this area are elsewhere only in India of the North-East. The Western ghâts are also the habitat of a great number of endemic species , particularly in the field of fauna amphibienne and reptilienne. The family of Uropeltidae - the snake with armed tail - comprising 44 species classified in 8 kinds is almost entirely limited to this area of the world. Frog Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis - of Nasika , nose in Sanskrit - discovered in 2003 by scientist Belgian Franky Bossuyt and whose genetic analyzes showed that it differed from all the frog species known today, is regarded as an alive fossil.

The Western ghâts, ecologically distinct from the drier areas of north and the east, can be still divided into four écorégions.

The septentrional part of the chain is generally drier than the southernmost part, and its low layers compose the écorégion North Western ghats moist deciduous forests ecoregion made up of forests with null and void sheets, mainly of the Teck ( Tectona grown ) and of the Diptérocarpacée S. Above 1000 meters, écorégion North Western ghats montane rain forests , fresher and wetter whose forests with persistent sheets are characterized by trees of the family of the Lauracée S.

The forests of trees with persistent sheets of the area of Wayanad in Kerala and the Tamil Nadu mark the zone of transition between the septentrional and southernmost écorégions from the Western ghâts. The southernmost écorégions are generally wetter and have a richer fauna and a flora. With low altitudes, one finds the écorégion South Western ghats moist deciduous forests , whose Cullenia is the characteristic tree, accompanied by teak, Diptérocarpacées and other gasolines. These wet forests form the transition with the drier écorégion South Deccan Plateau dry deciduous forests , located safe from the rain by the mountains.

Above 1000 meters, one finds the écorégion South Western ghats montane rain forests , it as fresher and wetter as the forests of the lower surrounding grounds, a écorégion dominated by the trees with persistent sheets, although some meadows of mountain and forests to the not very significant development can be found at high altitudes.

The écorégion South Western ghats montane rain forests is richest in cash of the Indian peninsula, eighty percent of the species of plants with flower of the Western ghâts are in this écorégion, in the same way, 35 percent of the plants, 42 percent of the Poisson S, 48 percent of the Reptile S and 75 percent of the Amphibien S which live in this écorégion are endemic there.

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