East Kolkata Wetlands community farming & aquaculture
Kolkata, India · Operator: Wetland community (peri-urban farmers & fishers)
Overview
The world's largest sewage-fed wetland and a Ramsar site where Kolkata's peri-urban community produces food and treats sewage through collective practices. Spanning ~12,500 hectares, it performs the threefold functions of food production, sewage treatment and drainage.
Citizen participation
A community of peri-urban farmers and fishers channels the city's sewage into fish ponds (bheris), vegetable plots and paddy fields, producing food while treating the wastewater through shared management practices. Residents pool generations of traditional knowledge to sustain the wetland.
Operating model
A self-organised, livelihood-based resource-recovery model in which the community lives off selling fish, vegetables and rice while using sewage as a nutrient, with conservation involvement from citizen groups and authorities.
Impact
Supplies around a quarter of the city's fish and vegetables and supports the livelihoods of about 118,000 people. It delivers cheap food to the city while recycling wastewater as a resource, seen as a resilient ecoculture model.
Land tenure
Wetland bheris and plots are used by the local community under mixed customary and leasehold arrangements; the area is also a protected Ramsar site.
Crops
- fish
- vegetables
- paddy
Scale
Ramsar site spanning ~12,500 hectares; world's largest wastewater-fed aquaculture system supporting livelihoods of about 118,000 people.
In the media（3）
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