Environmental pressure of active fishing method: A study on carbon emission by trawlers from north-west Indian coast

Abstract

Carbon footprint of fishing activities is an utmost important study at present for mitigation of climate change. It is a simplified form of life cycle assessment (LCA) which measured total amount of carbon dioxide emissions. Assessment of emission and energy utilization in fishing were neglected earlier and very minimal information are available in Indian context. The present study analyzed the fuel consumption, energy utilized and carbon emission rate of trawlers from north-west coast of India. Efficiency of different categories of trawlers i.e., single-day (SD), multi-day small (MDS), multi-day medium (MDM) and multi-day large (MDL) trawlers was estimated. SD trawlers were found to be most efficient followed by MDM, MDL and MDS. Single-day fishing was significantly different from multi-day fishing in terms of fuel efficiency, energy intensity and carbon emission rate. A total of 1769 trawlers were operated from Versova (site I), SSD (Sassoon Dock) (site II) and NFW (New Ferry Wharf) (site III). Of these, more than 50% are MDL trawlers and 76% of the total fuel consumed by MDL trawlers. Trawlers of selected sites resulted into total diesel consumption of 119 million litres per year. The carbon emission due to combustion of diesel was 0.3 million tonnes which is 1/12th of total carbon emission by Indian fishing fleet. Considering the impacts of trawlers on environment, substantial phasing out of MDS trawlers and multi-day trawlers with high installed engine horsepower is necessary. The trawling operation in north-west coast of India needs a strict regulation in terms of number and engine horsepower.