Cherrapunji, India: a land of waterfalls and speleothems, and the right place to become a UNESCO Global Geopark

Abstract

Here, I propose that Cherrapunji, one of the wettest places on the planet, should be a potential site as a UNESCO Global Geopark. This location is not only associated with numerous majestic waterfalls, karst topography and multiple natural caves and speleothems with global scientific value, but is also of great significance to local people. These features have made this place an important area for geoscience research, as well as an important area for the development of geotourism. Cherrapunji is also the source of the ‘Meghalayan Age’, the most recent age in the geological timescale, defined by the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) in 2018, for the past 4200 years of the Holocene. This article calls on researchers, government officials as well as the local people to take all the necessary steps to make Cherrapunji a UNESCO Global Geopark.