CMFRI, ISRO ink MoU to protect smaller wetlands

In a bid to build resilience against the impact of climate change, premier fisheries research institute CMFRI here and the ISRO have joined hands to map, validate and protect smaller wetlands by restoring them through coastal livelihood programmes.

They would develop a mobile app and a centralised web portal with a complete database of wetlands that are smaller than 2.25 hectares in the country, a release from the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) said Friday.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the CMFRI and the Space Applications Centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

Such smaller wetlands cover totally an area of more than five lakh hectares across the country, while Kerala having as many as 2,592 smaller wetlands.

As per the MoU, the two institutes aim to identify and demarcate wetlands, and restore the degraded wetlands through suitable livelihood options like coastal aquaculture.

The app will be used for real-time monitoring of the wetlands and giving advisories to stakeholders and coastal people, the release said.

The collaborative move was part of a national framework for fisheries and wetlands recently developed by the National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) project of CMFRI, it said.

The NICRA project is aimed at finding ways and means to mitigate the impact of climate change in marine fisheries and coastal region.

According to the MoU, the National Wetland Atlas, already developed by the SAC, will be updated with real-time data of physical, chemical and biological parameters of the wetlands to be provided by the CMFRI, the release said.

P U Zacharia, Principal Scientist and Principal Investigator, NICRA project of CMFRI, said the real-time data would greatly help developing a conservation plan for degraded wetlands in the region besides utilising these resources for livelihood prospects such as shrimp and crab farming.

This was the first national instance of a fisheries institute collaborating with the ISRO to develop a comprehensive climate resilient framework for fisheries and wetlands, it was stated.