Field Research & Training on the Coastal Payra River
Lead By: Abdullah Al Hasan, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Marine Fisheries & Oceanography
Location: Payra River, Coastal Bangladesh
We led postgraduate and undergraduate students through a full-day field program on the estuarine Payra River—combining data collection, instrument demonstrations, and hands-on training.
What we did
- Physicochemical profiling: Temperature, salinity, DO, TDS, pH, turbidity (multiparameter probes, refractometer salinometer, Secchi disk).
- Water sampling: Niskin bottle samples for nutrients, microplastics, and trace metals.
- Plankton studies: Phytoplankton & zooplankton collection for biomass and chlorophyll-a.
- Fisheries health and ecotoxicology: Fish analyses for microplastics and heavy metals.
- Sediment surveys: Van Veen grab sampling for benthic conditions and pollutant accumulation.
- Spatial mapping: GPS-based georeferencing to integrate ecological and geospatial datasets.
Student outcomes
- Instrument proficiency & standard sampling protocols
- Applied learning in a real estuarine system
- Teamwork, data stewardship, and field safety 🌍📚🎓 💡
Data analysis is underway to inform coastal monitoring, blue-economy potential, and evidence-based management of the Payra estuary.
