Wetlands and its biodiversity are among the most sensitive to climate change, in Cuba the most of aquatic and marshy flora, is located on very particular types quartz sands ecosystems, which are represented by a wide range of fresh water wetlands with several level flooding, which are spread in the south and south-western flood plains of Pinar del Río. Due to few works were found about these issues in the last century related to this kind of plants; an extensive field work was carried out, together with a monthly monitoring system in the last 15 years, gathering a lot of data as well as: pictures, herbarium samples, water level, phenology, factors cause species endangerment, among others. Data and samples were taken from more than 100 lagoons, swamps, marshes and flood plains.
Results/Conclusions
Taking into account general data, a preliminary updated inventory of these species was compiled, which provides species information about family, genera, biological type, habit, distribution, and the threat grade. A remarkable decrease the species number is evidenced, in regard to the previous scarce works related to this area; oligotrophic fresh water wetlands are transitioning towards eutrophic conditions due to deposit processes and deforestation, which are taken place by the human activity and the climatic change; the limitless use of their water reserves for irrigating groves, the cattle raising and intensive fishing, besides its sand with 99% pure crystal quartz, are used for the mining. The combination of all factors, has a negative influence on a flora that stores more than 300 species, most of them herbaceous and hydrophytes, with a 40% of endemism from the total, and more than 80%, are evaluated inside the most sensitive threat categories, unfortunately already some of them have been declared as extinct.