Funded by: Ministry of Education, Bangladesh

Project Duration: 2018-2021

Project Description:

Agriculture practices in this green delta, Bangladesh, are an integrated interaction of land and aquatic habitats. It is dry cultivable floodplains in winter are inundated with water during monsoon and get connected with rivers. Again, remains of fish and other aquatic lives from these huge seasonal water bodies get concentrated into the deeper parts (beels, rivers, etc.) during winter. Therefore, pesticides used in agriculture interact in irrigation water and aquatic habitat as well as find their way into the aquatic habitat. Keeping the complex dynamics of agro-pesticides in mind this research proposal will seek answer of the following issues:

(i) To study the effects of selected agro-pesticides on important physico-chemical parameters of aquatic environment such as rivers, canals and marshes;
(ii) To investigate the effects of selected agro-pesticides on reproduction, embryonic and larval development of some important indigenous freshwater fishes; and
(iii) To identify potential health hazard of agriculturally derived pesticides on ecosystem and human health.