Adapting to Climate Change

Climate change is front and center on the world’s environmental agenda, and rightly so. Fisheries depend on water supplies, and these will be impacted in major ways as weather events become more extreme (floods, droughts) and as water resources are fundamentally transformed (glaciers melt, coastlines and estuaries flood).

While many of these changes will severely undermine fisheries, some will create opportunities. For example, with the right technologies and farming systems, farmers can use flooded and saline areas that are no longer suitable for crops to cultivate fish. They can also soften the swings between drought and flood by using fish ponds to buffer and moderate water supplies. Waste nutrients and water from fish ponds can help sustain crops during periods of drought, thereby increasing the resilience of the total farming system.

WorldFish is helping nations plan for, adapt to and cope with climate change.