The Ecology and Fisheries of Barak River System of India

The disparity between knowledge of the fisheries of the lakes and other lentic water bodies and that of the rivers is significantly palpable in India which obviously is the outcome of inchoate assiduity made on riverine ecology and fisheries research in the country. The paucity of extensive and empirical knowledge on the riverine ecology and fisheries has put the policy makers, basin managers and other competent authorities at a disadvantage situation to redress the resultant malady in any developmental programmes culminating from these lotic bodies. The plight is significantly more conspicuous in Barak river system of India lying primarily within the geographical jurisdiction of Southern Assam and cursorily in Manipur and Mizoram States of N.E. India. Further, the students and researchers of fishery science in general and those of Assam University and its affiliated colleges of NER in particular have since been deprived of an authentic prequel on the ecology and fisheries of Barak river system to meet the requisites of their study programme. The present treatise, which encompasses an extensive profile on the ecology and fisheries of the Barak river system of India, therefore, will not only fulfill the need of these students in their academic pursuit along with other researchers in the field but will also make the policy makers and planners to materialize the fishery potentialities of the region on the fish fauna, fluvial dynamics and ecology including the physico-chemical conditions and potamoplankton communities of each lotic water system of the Barak drainages hitherto remained unexplored. Besides, the capture fisheries of some principal rivers along with fishing gears and devices those are in vogue in the drainages have also been purported in the treatise. The endemic ornamental fish resources of the Barak river system, a recent field of commercial importance have been incorporated in the book to expose their potentialities in global trade for the benefit of the entrepreneurs and aquarists of the region.