There are about 32,000 species of fishes worldwide and almost 40% of the species live in fresh water. There are 260 fish and 24 prawn species in inland fresh water in the country. Bangladesh, with its rich inland waters and river systems, has significant capture fishery and aquaculture potential. The favorable geographic position of Bangladesh comes with a large number of aquatic species and provides plenty of resources to support fisheries potential. Fish is a popular complement to rice in the national diet. Bangladeshi has one of the biggest and most active deltas, fed by three mighty rivers: the Padma, the Meghna and the Jamuna. This contributes to a high potential for fresh and brackish water capture and culture fisheries. Bangladesh was the 5th in world aquaculture production, which accounted for half of the country’s total fish production (55.15%). In 2014–2015, total fishery production of Bangladesh was 3,684,245 metric tons, of which 1,023,991 metric tons was obtained from inland capture fisheries.

The fisheries sector in Bangladesh is broadly divided into three sub-sectors:

  1. Inland capture
  2. Inland culture and
  3. Marine fisheries

The inland fishery is further divided into two sub-sectors:

  1. Inland capture fishery and
  2. Inland culture fishery.

 

The inland capture fishery has five types of habitat:-

  1. River and Estuary, approximately 853,863 hector
  2. Sundarbans, 177,700 hector
  3. Beels, 114,161 hector
  4. Kaptai lake, 68,800 hector
  5. Floodplain (haor), 2,695,529 hector

 

The inland culture fishery has six types of habitat-

  1. Pond. 371,309 hector
  2. Cultured water body, 130,488 hector
  3. Baor, 5,488 hector
  4. Shrimp/prawn farm, 275,274 hector
  5. Pen Culture, 6,775 hector
  6. Carge culture, 7 hector

 

What is Habitat:

The place in where particular plants or animals live is known as habitat. Within the habitat, organism occupies different niches. A niche is the functional role of a species in a community. Habitat is a place where species get what they need to survive food, water, cover, and a place to rare young. There are 265 species under 154 genera and 55 families found in Bangladesh and they inhabit various patterns or different freshwater habitat. Here the habitat of some common freshwater fish species under the order Cypriniformes is given in a tabular form.

 

SL No  Scientific name Common name Bengali name/ Local name Habitat
     1

Psilorhynchus balitora

 Balitora  minnow             Balitora             Hillstream
2

Barilius shacra

 Shacra bari Koksa, Saku koksha River, canal, beel, River and streams
3 Amblypharyngodon microlepis

 Indian carplet Mola Rivers, canals and ponds throughout Bangladesh
4

Rohtee cotio

 Cotio Dhela, Koti,Mauwa Rivers, canals, beels, haors, baors and pond. Generally move in shoal Freshwater, rivers, ponds and lakes.
5 Labeo calbasu

 Black rohu Kalbaush Beels and haors usually reared and cultured in tanks .Rivers and ponds.Haor, baor, canal ,beel, and river. Slightly tidal water is suitable than closed water. Prefer muddy bottom
6

Labeo rohita

 Rohu Rui, Rohu, Rou Rivers, beels, deep, pools and clear sluggish streams. It is largely stocked in ponds, reservoirs and tanks.Paddy fields.

River, canal, beel, haor and baor and paddy fields
7

Cirrhinus cirrhosis

 Mrigal Mrigel, Mirk Rivers, haors, baors, canals and beels. Prefer muddy bottom. They can also lives in closed water .

Rivers and tanks
8

Catla catla

 

             Catla Catla, Katal Rivers, haors, baors, beels, paddy field

 

Types of Freshwater:

Freshwater bodies in Bangladesh can be broadly classified into seven major ecosystems, which are

 (1) Rivers,

 (2) Depressed basins (haors and seasonally deeply flooded land),

(3) Beels (seasonally flooded large water bodies on dry-season cropland),

(4) Baors (oxbow lakes, or cutoff loops of rivers),

(5) Other lakes,

(6) Seasonally flooded floodplain, and

(7) Pond and ditches.

 

Tengra
(Mystus)

Kajuli
(Ailia coila)

Koi
(Cyprinus carpio)

Silver carp
(Hypophthalmichthys molitrix)

Rui
(Labeo rohita)

Pangas
(Pangasius)

 

Inland freshwater culture fisheries:

Freshwater aquaculture involves fish culture in ponds, tanks etc spread all over the country. Exotic and native carp species account for 85% of the total aquaculture production of 0.66 million tonnes. Major groups like Tilapia, Catfish and Shrimp are being cultured in suitable freshwater. Floodplains including rice fields and oxbow lakes are also day by day coming under culture-based capture fisheries practices. All technologies so far developed for freshwater aquaculture are highly profitable. Because of the high profits in scientific aquaculture, the number of ponds and the rate of adoption of technology-based aquaculture are both increasing. However, the growth of this sub-sector is obstructed by the following limitations:

  1. Basic inputs like fish eggs, fish feeds and other on-farm inputs are not available to most pond owners. Besides non-availability of quality seeds is the single largest limitation in expansion of aquaculture.
  2. Poor quality fish stocks due to inbreeding depression at private hatcheries which results in poor fish growth.
  3. Disease epidemics and loss of fish crop due to water quality deterioration resulting from inappropriate management.

 

Inland open water capture fisheries:

Situated in the deltaic plain of the three river systems – the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna – Bangladesh has vast inland open waters, rich in fisheries resources. In the open water production system, floodplains play an important role in fish production. Floodplains are the low-lying areas which are flooded by rivers and rainwater congestion. About one-third of the total area of Bangladesh is flooded every year and remains under water for 4-6 months. The floodplains, naturally rich in nutrients and fish food, are the feeding and grazing grounds of almost all inland fish, and the breeding grounds of many of the aquatic species. During the flood seasons (June-November), fish and shellfish grow in the floodplains and are harvested by the rural people. When the water recedes, fish accumulate in the deeper part of the floodplains, called beels, or they migrate to rivers which retain water throughout the year. Due to the decline of fish population in inland open water and obstruction in the migration route, recruitment of fish in the floodplains has declined and resources in the floodplains are not fully utilized.

 

 

Inland open water management-

  • In order to protect the Nature breeding ground of Cyprinidae fish and other juvenile fish, the Department of Fishery has adopted a series of measure, such as restoring Halda River,
  • Building a set of natural resources integrated management system, protecting biological diversity.
  • Maintaining residents livelihood of wet land and bench land with the help of projects development, etc,
  • They have also taken a range of manual intervention steps so as to prevent aquaculture ecosystem especially fish and other aquatic biodiversity in open water from degeneration, for example, building refuge and habitat protection for fishes.
  • Over the past 5 years, they have built 566 fish refuges in different water areas, which made the fishery production of these water areas get sustainable improvement. On the other hand, river, backwater and water channel at low-lying place has also been excavated again and again, aiming at making sure breeding migration of fish at breeding period.

 

  • Last 5 years freshwater fish production :

Year

                Production from inland(capture) source (MT)
2017-2018 12,16,539
2016-2017 11,63,606
2015-2016 10,48,242
2014-2015 10,23,991
2013-2014 9,95,805
Total

54,48,183

 

  • Inland capture freshwater fish production area on map-