Floodplain Wetlands in the Upper Brahmaputra Valley, Assam, India

Floodplain wetlands are very important for ecological and socio-economic services and, in Assam large number of people living in-and-around wetlands, often depends on the wetland ecosystem services for their livelihoods. To understand the ecological condition of floodplain wetlands, in the Upper Brahmaputra valley, Assam, assessment was carried out during the pre-monsoon and post-monsoon from October 2016 to May 2017 in six important wetlands. The paper highlights integrated approach to study the landscape status of the catchment area; physico-chemical characteristics of the water and soil. Over the time period of 2016-17, water and soil samples were collected and analysed from six- selected wetlands; and for the image based analysis of these wetlands have been carried out using Landsat-8 image 2016. The study revealed that, in spite of decreasing size, the Fuklai beel is in better condition among all of the wetlands based on the landscape assessment and the Water Quality Index (WQI) value with 66.6% vegetative coverand 57.3 respectively.