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Brief
The tropical waters are known for shrimp farming and could provide lucrative commercial opportunities for the coastal and riverine communities involved in aquaculture. The aquaculture activities are however, extremely vulnerable to disease and weather fluctuations. The communities are thus not able to draw the benefits of institutional financial assistance. These communities continue to rely in their traditional practices with no safe guards from the changing ecosystem parameters and climate change risk. The policy makers are also not able to intervene as these communities are small and their operations do not have scale.
The seaweed cultivation is another similar activity that is increasingly becoming popular in the tropical waters and has substantial sustainable benefits. It is on the extremely end of the sustainability scale with huge benefits for the communities, both tangible and intangible. However, the excessive sensitivity to the weather fluctuations and climate change risk is a concern. The seaweed cultivation in large scale could be a critical response to the growing concerns for sustainable development and climate change risk. However, large scale cultivation will require substantial transparency in the processes and certainty in the outcomes.
Digital transformation is probably the answer to such a requirement and the UDA framework could be the driver for large scale realization. The detailed source-path-receiver model is required to enable a qualitative and quantitative appreciation of the ground realities to plan interventions. The real-time monitoring of the underwater parameters and the corresponding prediction possibilities will give nuanced inputs for policy interventions and also to validate the impact of the technology interventions.
The models will have to be validated on ground with sensor networks and platforms to deploy the sensors to the appropriate sites. The data once collected will have to be first pre-processed to make them error free and also decouple the impact of the tropical distortions. The reasonably clean data needs to be then analysed based on the specific application to provide actionable inputs to the users and decision makers at multiple levels. The real-time availability of the actionable inputs for the users and decision makers is a critical aspect and the displays and hand held devises need to be customized.
A comprehensive framework will allow a nuanced governance mechanism to manage this critical and multi-dimensional requirement. The challenges and opportunities will be appropriately addressed with the digital tool. This, project will look at the multi-disciplinary aspects to generate a detailed and nuanced perspective on these two diverse by interlinked activities. Diverse because the source-path-receiver model is very different, however they need to be balanced to ensure sustainable growth and thus interlinking such activities is important. The Marine Spatial Planning (MSP), has become the key construct to manage such complex activities with diverse dimensions and dynamics. The Digital transformation will allow a nuanced way forward and allow us to harness the benefits of the tropical conditions.