Seaweed Farming as a Climate Resilient Strategy for Indian Coastal Waters
In the context of climate change and its impacts on global as well as regional levels, it is of necessity to develop effective climate resilient strategies. This paper focuses on the scope of seaweed farming along Indian coastal waters as a climate resilient strategy. Biofuels from various biomass f...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Conference Object |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2015
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://eprints.cmfri.org.in/10491/ http://eprints.cmfri.org.in/10491/1/Zacharia__2015_Seaweed_Farming_as_Climate_Resilient_Strategy_Inter._Conf._Integrating_Climate_Crop_Ecology.pdf |
| Summary: | In the context of climate change and its impacts on global as well as regional levels, it is of necessity to develop effective climate resilient strategies. This paper focuses on the scope of seaweed farming along Indian coastal waters as a climate resilient strategy. Biofuels from various biomass feedstocks serves as an alternative energy production route leading to reduced dependency on fossil fuels and is widely accepted strategy to combat global warming. The prospects of seaweed as a feedstock for biofuel production are reviewed through this paper. Carbon sequestration ability of seaweed makes its farming an option to combat ocean acidification and we envisage further bulk conversion of the substrate into stable bio char which offers additional long term soil C sequestration means. Improved water as well as nutrient holding capacity of biochar makes it feasible to apply in agricultural lands that are affected with low precipitation induced by climate change. Scope of seaweed bio char for agricultural resilience is further explored in this study. Climate change had negatively affected the rural livelihoods of fishermen community in several coastal villages. Seaweed farming, its harvest and processing requires manpower and hence poses as an opportunity to enhance the rural livelihoods, which is also discussed through this paper. The suitability of Indian coastal water s f or seaweed farming is also reviewed. The present study thus calls the attention towards developing seaweed farming as a climate resilient strategy which has multiple benefits of usage as alternative energy feedstock, as an option to combat ocean acidification, as a mitigation method for agricultural adversities and also as a means to improve coastal livelihoods. |
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