Assessing the water spread area available for fish culture and fish production potential in inland lentic waterbodies using remote sensing: A case study from Chhattisgarh State, India

Inland lentic waterbodies have a major role in contributing to nutritional and livelihood security of the rural poor in India. Generating a spatio-temporal resource inventory of the small waterbodies has immense potential in evidence-based fisheries development planning, so as to enhance the fish production (quantity) and productivity (quantity per unit area). The present study provides a framework for mapping these waterbodies using high resolution Cartosat 1 PAN and IRS ResourceSAT LISS IV merged imagery, determining the spatio-temporal water spread area and effective water spread area available for fish culture using Sentinel 2 Multi Spectral Imagery, for the years 2016-18. It provides an approach for determining the number of fingerlings required and estimating the production potential under standard production parameters, based on the extent of water available for fish culture in the waterbodies. The framework was piloted in Chhattisgarh, a landlocked State in Central India, which has a large number of inland waterbodies. A total of 121,529 waterbodies, with an area of 202,016 ha were mapped, of which 97% had an extent less than 5 ha. The total extent of waterbodies was 37% higher than the most recent estimate by Government of India. Availability of water in the waterbodies of the state, for a duration of at least 8 and 11 months in a year, was found to be 74% (149,484 ha) and 50% (102,167 ha) respectively, which indicates the vast scope for promotion of intensive aquaculture in the state. Minimum number of fingerlings required for stocking the available water was estimated as 403 million. This framework can be replicated across the country and other regions with poor in-situ data, for effective management of inland waterbodies through location-specific data-driven intervention planning.