Major Clımatıc Changes Affectıng Fısherıes And The Lıvelıhoods Of People

Abstract

In many developing countries, about 500 million people directly or indirectly depend on fisheries for their livelihood. The change in climate is one of the key factors affecting fisheries. Most of the excess heat produced from the greenhouse gas emissions were absorbed by the oceans lead to rise in oceanic temperatures. The rising temperature causes coral bleaching and the loss of breeding grounds for marine mammals and fishes. The continuing decrease in the pH of oceans on the Earth, which is caused due to  consuming CO2 from the atmosphere is termed to be Ocean Acidification. Ocean acidification and the rising ocean temperatures were radically altering marine aquatic ecosystems. As per various studies by the IUCN, present ocean acidification occurs approximately ten times faster than anything experienced during the last 300 million years due to CO2.When the freshwater ecosystems are considered, change in water temperature, water flow, fish habit loss etc. were responsible factors affecting the fisheries. All these have an impact on the sustainability of fisheries and aquaculture and also on the lives and livelihoods of many people or communities that depends mainly on fisheries. It also has an adverse effect that is, it affects the ability of oceans to capture and store carbon. Increased ocean temperatures and oxygen loss act concurrently with ocean acidification together forms ‘the deadly trio’. In this paper more details on the ‘deadly trio’ of climate change pressures on the marine environment along with the importance of conserving fisheries and how the livelihoods of many people were affected due to these climatic changes, some preventive measures etc. being illustrated.