Assessment and modeling of fish diversity related to water bodies of Bankura district, West Bengal, India, for sustainable management of culture practices

Abstract

Fish is an important vertebrate group due to its diversified role such as stabilization of local aquatic ecosystem, served to be the vital sources for animal protein and also helps to socio-economical upliftment of marginal peoples through culture practices. Nowadays, it becomes a great challenge to improve the fish production without affecting the wild stock in support to the sustainable aquaculture. Therefore, current research showed the application of modern GIS tools and survey-based data which utilize to verify the accurate scenario of sustainable aquaculture and potentiality of fish farming practices in Bankura District, West Bengal, India. In situ survey data discovered that, total 102 numbers of freshwater fish species belonging to 10 Orders and 27 Families out of which 14 fish species are under IUCN-threatened categories found in this district due to the availability of huge freshwater resources. Moreover, the Matrix plot also specified the threatened categorized fish species throughout the year to execute a suitable conservation and management plan. Even a map based representation of fish species distribution surveyed out in 22 different Community Development Blocks of Bankura to find the high, medium and low species diversity. Furthermore, GIS mapping and other crucial survey data have focused that total 48,453 numbers of closed water bodies (up to 0.033 ha areas considered) are found in this district. Hierarchical cluster analysis was performed to verify the interrelationship in all available wild closed water bodies as well as cultured based water bodies to validate the potentiality of fish farming. Multivariate linear correlation models have exposed the positive and negative relationship in between the species distribution and total numbers of closed water bodies; fish species distribution and percentage of cultured based closed water body (11.08%) distributions, respectively. Meanwhile, a lack of proper management policies toward the aquatic components of the said ecosystem will be ultimately downgrade the production efficiency and interlinked ecological balance in upcoming days.