Sediment Influx and Bioaccumulation: A Growing Threat to the Sundarbans Ecosystem

One of the major ecological hotspots of the entire world, is the Sundarban, spanning for approximately 10,000 square kilometres, across two countries, making it the world’s largest mangrove ecosystem. It is characterized by a complex network of rivers, estuaries, and tidal waterways. In recent decades, sediment influx from riverine sources, tidal actions, erosion, and anthropogenic activities has surged, raising concerns over heavy metal contamination, including lead, mercury, copper, and zinc. These contaminants contribute to bioaccumulation across trophic levels, adversely affecting aquatic biodiversity and human health. The major effects involve the over enrichment culminating to proliferation of organisms like diatoms on one hand leading to eutrophication and reduction in dissolved oxygen and on the other hand leading to accumulation of the elements across the trophic levels which not only impacts the ecosystem, but also detrimentally affects the consumers of these organisms, especially the human beings. Certain studies most importantly have found the levels of these sediments are far above the desirable range set by the European Union and other international organisations making it a global concern. Sustainable management practices are the need of the hour to mitigate these impacts and preserve the biodiversity of this unique mangrove habitat, else with the increasing levels of sedimentations, the Sundarbans will face tremendous challenges that will leave no stone unturned to affect the human as well as the animal population across India (Especially West Bengal) and Bangladesh. Moreover, this is not only the story of Sundarbans, the same trend is replicated across the other parts of the world, making it a global concern, needing immediate attention of the international bodies by strictly implementing control measures.