Geospatial mapping of fisheries profiles of indo-gangetic plains of India through GIS

The Indo-Gangetic Plains(IGP) in India is composed of five states-Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal. All these states have abundant inland water resources in the form of lakes, reservoirs, tanks and rivers which, in turn, show great possibility of increasing inland fish production and will favourably affect the food availability of the region and reduce the vulnerability of the resource-poor population. In this paper, an effort has been made to identify inland water resources in Indo-Gangetic Plains through Geospatial Mapping which are suitable for fish culture and thus help policy planners in developing strategies for sustainable utilization of resources of the region. Mapping of fisheries profile of Indo-Gangetic Plains is performed by using intelligence GIS tool having critical geographic dimensions. For this purpose, fisheries data of Indo-Gangetic Plains are accessed and integrated with different north-eastem states atdifferent levels. All the data were brought in tabular form through Microsoft Excel and then joined with digitized map of the Indo-Gangetic Plains. Mapping was done through Arc Info GIS software (9.3.1 version) and further synchronized to generate three thematic maps containing multiple layers. First map reflects average fish production (total, inland and marine), second map depicts fishers population along with their occupation and third map indicates fish business flow directions reflected through fish consumption pattern and demand and supply of fish.