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| Beel a large surface waterbody that accumulates surface runoff water through internal drainage channels; these depressions are mostly topographic lows produced by erosions and are seen all over Bangladesh. The term beel is synonymous to baor, and familiar in greater comilla, faridpur, dhaka and pabna districts. Beels are small saucer-like depressions of a marshy character. Many of the beels dry up in the winter but during the rains expand into broad and shallow sheets of water, which may be described as fresh water lagoons. | |||||
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| In the active floodplains of the Surma-Meghna, the Brahmaputra-Jamuna, and the Ganges-Padma river systems, there are several large and small beels. In Bangladesh, there are thousands of beels of different sizes. Some of the most common names are chalan beel, gopalganj-khulna beel and arial beel. Most of these large beels have shrunk quite considerably in recent decades. For instance, in the early 19th century Chalan Beel used to cover an area of about 1,085 sq km but it was reduced to 368 sq km in 1909, of which only 85 sq km remains underwater throughout the year. It has since shrunk to only 26 sq km. Beels are mainly fed by surface runoff water. A few larger ones are fed by floodwater during the wet season from the parent river channel. Normally, beels remain deeply flooded for most of the wet season and the rims are primarily used for either boro cultivation or deepwater rice. Like baors, beels are also important wetlands and regarded as valuable fish and wildlife habitat. | |||||
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Copyright ©
2005, Bangladesh Water Development Board |
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