The Aravalli Range, one of India’s oldest mountain systems spanning Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Gujarat, serves as a critical ecological barrier and biodiversity hotspot. Despite its vital role, the ecosystem faces severe threats from human activities, making conservation urgent. Recent Supreme Court interventions aim to address these vulnerabilities through mapping and restrictions.
Ecological Importance
The Aravalli acts as a natural barrier against the Thar Desert’s eastward expansion, preventing desertification of the Indo-Gangetic plains while regulating climate and recharging groundwater for rivers like Chambal, Sabarmati, and Luni. Its forests function as “green lungs” for North India, mitigating air pollution, reducing soil erosion, and supporting diverse flora and fauna, including species like leopards and mugger crocodiles. This watershed role between Indus and Ganga basins sustains regional water security and biodiversity.
The Aravalli Range provides essential ecosystem services that sustain life in northwest India’s semi-arid regions, acting as a critical barrier and resource hub. These services support biodiversity, water security, climate regulation, and livelihoods for millions.
- Water Regulation
The range functions as a major watershed, recharging groundwater at rates up to 2 million liters per hectare annually through its natural fissures. It originates key rivers like Banas, Luni, Sahibi, Chambal, and Sabarmati, dividing drainage between the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea basins while sustaining agriculture in Rajasthan, Haryana, and Gujarat. The Aravalli Range provides essential ecosystem services that sustain life in northwest India’s semi-arid regions, acting as a critical barrier and resource hub. These services support biodiversity, water security, climate regulation, and livelihoods for millions
The Aravalli Range facilitates groundwater recharge primarily through its fractured rocky terrain and forest cover, which allow rainwater to percolate deeply into aquifers during monsoons. This process sustains water tables in water-scarce regions like the National Capital Region (NCR), including Delhi, Gurugram, and Faridabad.
Rainwater seeps through the permeable fractures in Aravalli’s ancient quartzite and granite rocks, replenishing aquifers at rates exceeding two million liters per hectare in some areas. Forest cover and vegetation slow runoff, enhancing infiltration, while seasonal streams and natural ponds in the foothills act as storage points for gradual release into underground layers. Studies by the Central Ground Water Board identify five key transects in the range that connect hard rock zones to alluvial plains, ensuring lithological continuity for broad recharge.
These aquifers supply drinking water and support agriculture across Haryana, Rajasthan, and Delhi, countering depletion rates of 1-1.5 meters annually in affected states. Without this natural filtration and storage, urban areas like Gurugram would face severe shortages, as the range links hilly recharge zones to surrounding lowlands.
- Biodiversity Support
The Aravalli Range hosts diverse flora and fauna adapted to its semi-arid thorn scrub forests, with many species facing threats from habitat loss, mining, and fragmentation. Key species warrant protection due to their ecological roles, endemism, or endangered status under IUCN Red List. Prioritizing these supports biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services like water recharge and desertification control.
Aravalli hosts dry deciduous forests, grasslands, and wetlands, fostering over 400 plant species, 200+ birds, and mammals like leopards and nilgai, while serving as vital wildlife corridors. It maintains dryland biodiversity, including migratory species, and acts as a carbon sink amid urbanization
Major Flora Species include dominant trees like dhak (Anogeissus pendula), salai (Boswellia serrata), dhak (Butea monosperma), neem, and acacia species like Acacia nilotica, A. leucophloea, and A. senegal, which stabilize soil and provide fodder. Grasses such as Cymbopogon martini and Dichanthium annulatum, along with shrubs like Ziziphus nummularia and Capparis decidua, form critical understory for herbivores and groundwater retention. Rare and endangered plants, including 200 native species in areas like Aravalli Biodiversity Park, face decline from invasive species like Prosopis Juli flora.
Major Fauna Species include mammals feature leopards, Bengal tigers (in Sariska), sloth bears, nilgai (blue bull), chinkara (Indian gazelle), striped hyenas, Indian fox, jungle cat, and four-horned antelope. Over 400 bird species thrive, including Great Indian Bustard, red-headed vulture, eagles, owls, hornbills, and peafowl, many using the range as a migratory corridor. Reptiles like the critically endangered elongated tortoise and diverse snakes/lizards highlight the need for wetland and rocky habitat protection.
Priority Protection Species include endangered fauna such as Great Indian Bustard, elongated tortoise, tigers, leopards, and sloth bears requires urgent corridor restoration to combat poaching and fragmentation. Threatened flora like Boswellia serrata, Sterculia urens, and Lannea coromandelica demand anti-mining buffers for their medicinal and ecological value. Conservation targets these via eco-sensitive zones and green wall projects to preserve genetic diversity.
.
- Climate and Soil Protection
As a “green wall,” it blocks Thar Desert expansion, moderates dust storms, and prevents desertification of the Indo-Gangetic plains. Vegetation stabilizes soil, reduces erosion, and improves air quality in the NCR region
The Aravalli Range plays a crucial role in climate change mitigation through carbon sequestration, desertification control, and ecosystem regulation across northwest India. Its forests and biodiversity hotspots store significant carbon while acting as a natural barrier against the Thar Desert’s expansion. Restoration efforts like the Aravalli Green Wall further enhance these benefits
Carbon Sequestration is facilitated by forests in the Aravalli, such as those at Delhi’s Aravalli Biodiversity Park, store over 9,107 tonnes of carbon across 200,000+ trees, with annual sequestration of about 1,253 tonnes valued at Rs 1.7 crore. These trees also remove 14.6 tonnes of pollutants yearly, equivalent to Rs 1.8 crore in mitigation value, using tools like i-Tree Eco models.
IT works as desertification Barrier as the range blocks dust-laden winds from the Thar Desert, preventing eastward spread into Haryana, Rajasthan, Delhi-NCR, and Gujarat. Degradation has widened gaps, intensifying dust storms and land loss, but intact hills stabilize soil and reduce erosion. The 1,400 km Aravalli Green Wall initiative targets restoring 1.1 million hectares by 2027 to plug these gaps and bolster resilience
Climate Regulation
Aravalli forests enhance precipitation, moderate temperatures, and trap pollutants as “green lungs” for Delhi-NCR. They regulate micro-climates by preserving humidity and slowing winds, countering heatwaves and aridity in semi-arid zones receiving 500-700 mm rain annually. Groundwater recharge potential reaches 2 million litres per hectare via cracked rocks, aiding water security amid climate stress.
- Livelihood Provisions
Forests supply fuelwood, fodder, fruits, and commercial products, supporting India’s livestock and milk production, plus rainfed crops like bajra, maize, and pulses. These
Key Vulnerabilities
Uncontrolled mining has increased from 1.8% of land in 1975 to 2.2% in 2019, causing biodiversity loss, soil degradation, and vegetation decline, with projections of 22% further loss by 2059. Rapid urbanization in areas like Gurugram and Faridabad, illegal encroachments, and deforestation fragment habitats, exacerbating water scarcity and pollution. Even protected areas show impacts, with over 31 hills disappearing in the upper range in the last 20 years.
Conservation Efforts
The Supreme Court, in its November 2025 judgment, endorsed science-based mapping, bans on mining in core zones, and strengthened enforcement against illegal activities. Initiatives like the Aravali Green Wall, afforestation by National Mission for Clean Ganga, and National Green Tribunal orders target restoration and eco-sensitive zoning. Recommendations include GIS monitoring, community involvement, and sustainable livelihoods to reduce mining dependency.
Supreme Court’s intervention- A ray of hope for conserving Aravalli
- The Supreme Court of India, in its November 20, 2025 judgment in T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad v. Union of India, accepted a uniform definition of Aravalli Hills and Ranges while mandating a comprehensive framework to balance ecological restoration with regulated mining. This framework emphasizes prohibiting mining in core/inviolate zones, preparing a Management Plan for Sustainable Mining (MPSM), and enforcing restoration measures across Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Gujarat.
The Supreme Court judgment of November 20, 2025, in T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad v. Union of India accepts the committee’s recommendations for designating core/inviolate areas within Aravalli Hills and Ranges where mining is prohibited, with limited exceptions for critical, strategic, atomic minerals (Parts B and D of the First Schedule of MMDR Act), and Seventh Schedule minerals.
These areas, as outlined in paragraph 7.4.1 of the committee’s report, include protected areas like tiger reserves and corridors, eco-sensitive zones (ESZs/ESAs) notified under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, and default ESZs per court orders in WP(C) No. 202/1995. Mining is also banned within 1 km of protected area boundaries (even if ESZ is smaller), areas with CAMPA/government/international-funded plantations, and 500m buffers around Ramsar sites and Wetlands Rules, 2017 sites.
Earlier CEC recommendations incorporated into the framework extend bans to dark groundwater zones (e.g., Faridabad, Gurgaon), 10km interstate boundaries (Rajasthan-Haryana), tiger corridors, 2km perennial water bodies/Ramsar buffers, NCR regions, aquifer recharge areas, and low-revenue minerals like masonry stone. Forest areas in Aravalli require court permission post-mapping and EIA
- Aravalli Hills include any landform in Aravalli districts with 100 meters or more elevation from local relief, encompassing the hill, slopes, and associated features within the lowest encircling contour. Aravalli Ranges form when two or more such hills lie within 500 meters, including all landforms and slopes in between via buffer and intersection mapping.
- No new mining leases until MoEFCC finalizes the MPSM through ICFRE, which must identify permissible mining zones, sensitive areas for prohibition, cumulative impact analysis, and restoration priorities. Existing legal mines continue under strict compliance, including expert inspections for environmental safeguards by forest, mining, and pollution control officials. Mining remains banned in core/inviolate areas like protected zones, tiger reserves/corridors, eco-sensitive zones, Ramsar wetlands (500m buffer), and CAMPA plantations.
- The MPSM requires detailed post-mining restoration, rehabilitation, and reclamation plans for abandoned sites over one hectare, with states submitting time-bound execution to CEC. States must map illegal mining polygons, close groundwater-reaching mines, and implement online monitoring like ILMS for production and compliance. Biennial cumulative impact evaluations and district task forces ensure carrying capacity limits and illegal mining curbs.
Taken to gather the government’s efforts and the Court’s order, it inculcate a ray of hope so far as the conservation of this vital but highly vulnerable and fragile ecosystem is concerned. By enforcing its frame work which include MPSM, implementation of sustainable practices and insurance of ecologically integrity across the full stretch of the Aravalli, seems to be possible.