Candaba Swamp is located in Candaba,

Pampanga province Pampanga, officially the Province of Pampanga ( pam, Lalawigan ning Pampanga; tl, Lalawigan ng Pampanga ), is a province in the Central Luzon region of the Philippines. Lying on the northern shore of Manila Bay, Pampanga is bordered by Tarlac ...

, 60 km northeast of

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital city, capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is Cities of the Philippines#Independent cities, highly urbanize ...

in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

. It encompasses about 32,000 ha, made of freshwater ponds, swamps and

marshes A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found at ...

surrounded by seasonally flooded grasslands. The entire area becomes submerged underwater during the

wet season The wet season (sometimes called the Rainy season) is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. It is the time of year where the majority of a country's or region's annual precipitation occurs. Generally, the se ...

. It dries out during the months of November to April, then the swamp is converted to farmland by the locals.

Watermelon Watermelon (''Citrullus lanatus'') is a flowering plant species of the Cucurbitaceae family and the name of its edible fruit. A scrambling and trailing vine-like plant, it is a highly cultivated fruit worldwide, with more than 1,000 var ...

and

rice Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly '' Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and ''Porteresia'', both wild and domestica ...

are usually planted, comprising the vegetation of the

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

, together with patches of Nipa palm and some

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in several ...

species. The Candaba swamp also acts as a natural flood retention basin during the rainy season. It holds the overflow from five smaller rivers (Maasim, San Miguel, Garlang, Bulu and Peñaranda), then drains into the larger Pampanga River.

References

* Dagumbay, Marna (18 Jun 2005). “Candaba swamp in Pampanga a bird-flu hotspot.” Sun Star Network Online. Accessed on Dec 2012. * Municipality of Candaba (2007). “Candaba Swamp.” Candaba Official Site. Accessed on Dec 2012. * Orejas, Tonette (17 Jan 2005). “Asian migratory birds back at Candaba Swamp.” INQ7.net. Accessed on Dec 2012. * Orejas, Tonette (16 Jan 2006). “Rare Birds Sighted at Candaba Swamp.” BirdWatch.ph. Accessed on 27 Dec 2012. Swamps of Asia Wetlands of the Philippines Landforms of Pampanga {{Philippines-geo-stub