Economic evaluation and ecological characterisation of a semi-enclosed and open water system of Goa, India

Abstract

A study was conducted for ecological and economic evaluation of four different aquaculture systems in coastal waters of Goa during 2013 to 2015; two semi-enclosed water systems and two open water systems. Economics of all the systems with break-even analysis has been carried out to compute the cost structure of different culture systems. End results revealed that the highest rate of return and lowest payback period were from SEWMS. Benefit cost ratio and rate of return were highest and payback period was found to be shortest for SEWMS. Thus, multi-species culture in semi-enclosed coastal waters was found to be profitable, economically efficient and productive system compared to monospecies culture. Considering all this, an ecological model was constructed for SEWMS and simulated the impacts of multispecies aquaculture at various scales in this ecosystem. An optimal ecologically sustainable scenario was established for a period of ten years. The work concludes that there is enough scope for developing the multi-species aquaculture practices in unutilised semi-enclosed coastal waters of Goa as a secondary livelihood option by giving adequate technical support to the farmers.