Climate change risks and adoption of mitigating measures in freshwater aquaculture

unknown. The study has made an attempt to identify various climate change risks encountered by the fish farmers in freshwater aquaculture in India. This paper also demonstrates in detail the relevant measures adopted by them to mitigate various types of climate change risks in freshwater aquaculture. A simple random sample of 368 fish farmers were selected from 11 states in India i.e. Andaman, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Manipur, Meghalaya, Odisha, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal and primary data was collected from the fish farmers with the help of a well-structured questionnaire during 2014-15 and 2015-16. Various climate change risks encountered by them were identified and were broadly categorized intoeight types such as (i) Flooding of pond, (ii) Destruction of embankment, (iii) Less rain, (iv) Disease outbreak, (v) Heavy mortality, (vi) Planktonic collapse, (vii) Long dry spell and (viii) Deterioration of water quality. Against each type of risk, different mitigating measures were adopted by the farmers. These measures are environment friendly, economically viable and make use of locally available materials. The measures adoptedby the fish farmers would encourage other fellow farmers to follow the same for sustainable aquaculture. It will influence the stakeholders and policy makers to develop strategic plans for adoption of various mitigating measures to ward off climate change risks in freshwater aquaculture in India that will lead to sustainable aquaculture.Keywords Climate change, freshwater aquaculture, risks and measures, strategic plans