Modelling the Influence of Marine Fishery Advisories on the Reduction of Carbon Dioxide Emissions for Odisha Under Varying Climate Change Scenarios Using CMIP Models: An Evidence-Based Approach for Policymaking

Long-term emissions of carbon dioxide by mechanised boats can negatively impact marine environment through drastic reduction in target fish stocks, increase in by-catches and low profits for fishers. These in turn trigger a vicious cycle of overcapacity fishing to compensate for loss of profits and severely impact marine biodiversity conservation and sustainability. India’s Marine Fishery Advisories (MFAs), developed and disseminated by INCOIS, is a valuable knowledge product to optimise the fishing expeditions to fish accumulation zones under the lowest disturbance to the marine environment, with significant co-benefits of lowering the emissions from industrial fishing activities. Simulating decadal, annual scale emissions for RCP 4.5 and 8.5 using a CMIP5-based modelling approach in the present study showed negligible effects under the former and significant rise in the latter scenario. Investigations also revealed that MFAs have the capacity to reduce the annual emissions by 220,667.5 tonnes/year for the Bay of Bengal region near Odisha. The present study provides an evidence-based policy approach for promoting and enabling the use of MFAs as knowledge products of geospatial technology, not just to meet the targets of Sustainable Development Goals 14b (SDG 14b) but also to contribute towards national-level conformance to international standards for prevention of maritime pollution such as ‘MARPOL 73/78' and its subsequent amendments.