Rat floods and water floods: the ecological and sociological dynamics of rodent management in Bangladesh

Rodent pests in Bangladesh are ubiquitous and cause severe damage to agricultural production and human health. Pest problems are typically chronic in the lowland flood plains, with some minor seasonal variation in the types of problems occurring. In the upland areas, rodents are not normally a severe chronic problem because agriculture is less intense and highly seasonal. However, the uplands face serious acute problems with rodent outbreaks every 50 years. Until now, the dynamics of these outbreaks have been poorly documented and studied. Our research in Bangladesh has focused on studying this outbreak phenomena as well as mitigating the chronic problems of rodents by introducing agricultural communities to ecologically-based rodent management strategies.