Today’s story is the answer to the July puzzler.
In recent decades, aquaculture has boomed in Andhra Pradesh. The state has become one of India’s largest producers of farmed fish and shrimp. Among the reasons for the boom: a major expansion of inland aquaculture farms along rivers and canals where people once raised crops.
The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 acquired this natural-color image of an area dense with inland aquaculture ponds along the Upputeru River on June 8, 2021. Aquaculture ponds appear dark green. Farmland is generally brown. Coastal areas with mangrove forests are lighter green.
According to satellite imagery, aquaculture was scarce in this area in the mid-1980s. Now carp, catfish, and other types of finned fish are commonly raised in the area. There are numerous shrimp ponds, too, which tend to be the narrower plots, according to one satellite survey of the area.
The Indian government established the first aquaculture ponds in this area in the 1970s around Lake Kolleru. Since then, the initial success of those projects has made aquaculture an appealing and profitable choice for many farmers in the region who regularly dealt with crops being flooded, the intrusion of salt into water used for irrigation, and Bay of Bengal cyclones.
Despite the expansion, India’s aquaculture sector has faced challenges recently. One recent study calculated that its shrimp farming sector may have lost as much as $1.5 billion in 2020-2021 due to disruptions related to the pandemic. The state of Andhra Pradesh accounts for about 70 percent of India’s shrimp production.
References & Resources
- Aquaculture Alliance (2020, October 5) How India became the worldâs top shrimp producer. Accessed July 16, 2021.
- Belton, B. et al. (2017) Boom and bust in Andhra Pradesh: Development and transformation in India's domestic aquaculture value chain. Aquaculture, 470, 196-206.
- Dwivedi, R. & Kandrika, S. (2005) Delineation and monitoring of aquaculture areas using multi-temporal space-borne multispectral data. Current Science, 89 (8), 1414-1421.
- The Fish Site (2020, October 5) How has Indiaâs shrimp sector weathered the Covid-19 crisis? Accessed July 16, 2021.
- Krishna, S.et al. (2019) Aquaculture, a Replacement of Agriculture in Andhra Pradesh, India. Scientific Agriculture 3 (6).
- Kumaran, M. et al. (2021) Prospective impact of Corona virus disease (COVID-19) related lockdown on shrimp aquaculture sector in India â a sectoral assessment. Aquaculture, 531, 735922.
- Naidu, R. (2017) Geospatial Technologies for Identification of Potential Aquaculture areas in Andra Pradesh, a Case Study of Krishna District. International Journal of Advanced Technology & Engineering Research.
- New Indian Express (2020, February 1) Andhra stands first in fish production, shows Economic Survey. Accessed July 16, 2021.
- New Indian Express (2021, May 24) COVID-19 hits fish farmers hard in Andhra Pradeshâs Nellore. Accessed July 16, 2021.
- Subramanyam,L. & Prasad, S. (2017) Growth and Development of Aquaculture in Andhra Pradesh - A Study. International Journal of Academic Research, 4 (1), 2348-7666.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens , using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey . Story by Adam Voiland
