Impact of aquaculture on land use patterns, environment and economy: A case study of West Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh, India

Aquaculture is one of the fast growing and intensively spread in coastal regions especially in the coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh. A large extent of coastal regions and fertile lands which are having rich resource potentials of flora and fauna are converted into fish ponds. This sector provides huge employment directly and indirectly especially in the coastal regions. The un-presidential and indiscriminate growth of aquaculture brings structural changes in the land use patterns especially in the coastal regions. As a result several complex problems arised in various spheres and create adverse effects on physical, environmental and socio economic fronts. Keeping the above aspects under consideration, an attempt is made to analyze the extent of the growth of aquaculture activity as well as determine land use changes reported over the period. Further the study assessed the impact of aquaculture and their adverse effects arised in physical environmental and socio economic aspects. Besides this suitable remedial measures are suggested for the overall improvement of the situation. The study has chosen coastal regions of West Godavari District as the study area because the higher extent of aquaculture activity is clustered in these regions and also reported rapid land use changes and environment and economy due to aqua culture at grass roots levels.