Carbon Storage in Sediments of Freshwater Fishponds of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, and West Bengal, India

Considering the impact of climate change on aquaculture practices, carbon storage by fish pond sediment could mitigate some emission of greenhouse gases form the fish ponds. The potentials of carbon storage by the sediments of fish ponds of Ganjam, Keonjhargarh, and Puri districts of Odisha, Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, Moyna and Tamluk of East Medinipur, Purulia, Bankura, Murshidabad, South and North 24 Parganas districts of West Bengal, India were estimated. It is evident from the results that with an increase in fish production, the C storage decreased. The production per crop in the present study increased from 1815±376 kg/ha to 8351±1882 kg/ha and accordingly, the C storage/kg fish decreased from 1.44±0.73 to 0.62±0.21. The three types of combined humus carbon (loosely, stably and tightly combined humus carbon) were also analyzed for some sediment in the present study. The loosely combined humus varied from 36 to 43 per cent, stably combined humus varied from 4 to 6 per cent, and tightly combined humus varied from 53 to 58 per cent, respectively. Among the three combined humus, loosely combined form constitute about 40 percent of the total soil organic carbon, and thus, carbon sequestration could be 60 percent of the total soil carbon storage.