Assessment of water quality in relation to fishery perspective in flood plain wetlands of subansiri river basin Assam, India

Abstract

The flood plains wetlands are low laying areas exist along the riverine system with immense production potentials, supports millions of people through wide ranges of resources and services. The state of Assam has total 3513 numbers of flood plain wetlands with an area of 1.0 lakh ha in addition to 2.3 million ha of seasonally flooded rice field. The natural productivity of fishes from beel fisheries is noteworthy because of the favourable water quality and auto stocking of natural fish seeds. The seasonal variation of water quality parameters (DO, BOD, FCO2, alkalinity, total hardness, calcium hardness, chloride, pH and water temperature in three different categories of flood plains (deep water rice field, oxbow lake and beel of subansiri flood plains) were analyzed for the year 2013-14). The recorded values stand for favourable water quality for fish and fisheries development. The diversification of aquaculture and culture based capture fishery through community participation has the great potential to enhance fish production in the state providing livelihood to rural poor. This study was aimed to focus the limnology and sustainable utilization of flood plains for fisheries development.