Seaweed Farming as a Climate Resilient Strategyudfor Indian Coastal Waters

摘要

In the context of climate change and its impacts on globaludas well as regional levels, it is of necessity to develop effective climate resilient strategies. This paper focuses on the scope ofudseaweed farming along Indian coastal waters as a climate resilientudstrategy. Biofuels from various biomass feedstocks serves as anudalternative energy production route leading to reduced dependencyudon fossil fuels and is widely accepted strategy to combat globaludwarming. The prospects of seaweed as a feedstock for biofueludproduction are reviewed through this paper. Carbon sequestrationudability of seaweed makes its farming an option to combat oceanudacidification and we envisage further bulk conversion of the substrateudinto stable bio char which offers additional long term soil Cudsequestration means. Improved water as well as nutrient holdingudcapacity of biochar makes it feasible to apply in agricultural landsudthat are affected with low precipitation induced by climate change.udScope of seaweed bio char for agricultural resilience is furtherudexplored in this study. Climate change had negatively affected theudrural livelihoods of fishermen community in several coastal villages.udSeaweed farming, its harvest and processing requires manpower andudhence poses as an opportunity to enhance the rural livelihoods,udwhich is also discussed through this paper. The suitability of Indianudcoastal water s f or seaweed farming is also reviewed. The presentudstudy thus calls the attention towards developing seaweed farming asuda climate resilient strategy which has multiple benefits of usage asudalternative energy feedstock, as an option to combat oceanudacidification, as a mitigation method for agricultural adversities andudalso as a means to improve coastal livelihoods.