Central Deccan Plateau Dry Deciduous Forests - Setting

Setting

The Deccan Plateau is a large triangular plateau in southern India, bounded by the Western Ghats range to the west, the Eastern Ghats to the east, and the western Satpura Range to the north. The Central Deccan Plateau dry deciduous forests occupy an area of 240,200 square kilometers (92,700 sq mi) in which the dominant natural habitat is or was woodland of Hardwickia binata and Albizia amara trees, located on the central and southern portion of the plateau. The ecoregion lies mostly within the states of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, extending into adjacent parts of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh states. In Maharashtra, the Central Deccan Plateau dry deciduous forests cover most of the Vidarbha region, including the city of Nagpur. In Andhra Pradesh, the dry deciduous forests cover much of the Telingana region, including Hyderabad, the state capital, with a small portion extending across the Eastern Ghats to the Arabian Sea in Krishna District.

The xeric Deccan thorn scrub forests lie to the west, south, and southeast, covering the drier portions of the plateau in the rain shadow of the Western Ghats. The more humid Eastern highlands moist deciduous forests lie to the northeast and east, while the Narmada Valley dry deciduous forests lie across the Satpuras to the northwest.

The Godavari River crosses the ecoregion from its source in the Western Ghats and indeed most of the rivers on the plateau drain east towards the Bay of Bengal, with the exception of the Tapti River in the northwestern corner of the plateau, which drains westward into the Arabian Sea.

This is a highly populated area and most of the natural forest in the ecoregion has been cleared for firewood or grazing land or as a result of river damming, all of whicg are ongoing. However large blocks of original habitat such as the Nagarjunsagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserves in Andhra Pradesh do remain.