Abeel (Bengali andAssamese: বিল) is abillabong or a lake-likewetland with static water as opposed to moving water in rivers and canals - typically calledkhāls in Bengali, in theGanges -Brahmaputraflood plains ofBangladesh, and theIndian states ofWest Bengal andAssam. The term owes its origins to the word of the same pronunciation meaning "pond" and "lake" in theBengali andAssamese languages.
Typically, beels are formed by inundation of low-lying lands duringflooding, where some water gets trapped even after flood waters recede back from theflood plains. Beels may also be caused by filling up of low-lying areas duringrains, especially during themonsoon season.
There are different causes for the formation of beels. A string of beels is indicative of there being the remains of a great river that deserted its channel, moving to a new one elsewhere.[1]
In north eastern Bangladesh there are large water bodies calledhaors. A haor is a bowl shapeddepression which is flooded every year duringmonsoon. Throughout the rainy season a haor is such a vast stretch of turbulent water that it is thought of as a sea, within which the villages appear as islands. It remains under water for seven months of the year. During the dry season water drains out leaving small shallow lakes exposing rich soil extensively cultivated for rice.[2][3] In greaterComilla,Faridpur,Dhaka andPabna districts the beel is sometimes referred to as baor.[1]
Bangladesh has thousands of beels, with the best-known beingChalan Beel,Beel Dakatia, Gopalganj-Khulna Beel, Meda Beel, Aila beel, Dekhar beel, Kuri beel, Erali beel and Arial Beel.[4] In the central partBangladesh, important beels are Katla, Chatal, Nagarkanda, and Chanda. Most of the large beels have shrunk a great deal in recent decades. Regionwise, in the northwest of Bangladesh some of the larger beels are Bara Beel inPirganj, Tagrai Beel inKurigram, Lunipukur inRangpur, Bara Mirzapur Beel inNarail and Keshpathar inBogra. The old river course ofAtrai has beels. In the southern region of Bangladesh, important beels are Boyra,Dakatia, Bara, Kola, Patla, Chatal and Srirampur.[1]
InAssam,Deepor Beel is a permanent, freshwater lake, in a former channel of the Brahmaputra river, to the south of the main river south-west ofGuwahati. It has great biological and environmental importance besides being the only major storm water storage basin for the Guwahati city. The beel is endowed with rich floral and faunal diversity. In addition to huge congregation of residential water birds, the Deepor ecosystem harbours large number of migratory waterfowl each year. Deepor Beel has been designated as aRamsar site in November 2002.[5]
