Supaul Saharsa Kosi River Flood Fishery Ecology

Supaul and Saharsa districts straddle the Kosi river — called Bihar's sorrow for its catastrophic annual floods — where the river's braided channel system annually shifts course across a 100km-wide floodplain, depositing coarse sand that renders agricultural land infertile for years after major floods. The 2008 Kosi river breach at Kusaha devastated Supaul and Saharsa, inundating 3.5 million people and shifting the river's course by 100km eastward — one of India's worst flood disasters. The Kosi's floodplain chaur lakes and oxbow channels support productive freshwater fisheries harvested by Mallah fishing communities, with catla, rohu, and singhara caught using cast nets during monsoon floods when fish disperse into flooded fields.