Kochi: Oxygen Minimum Zone impacts availability of fish
India is strongly denying the allegation, but we don't have scientific data or study report to prove the allegation wrong.
KOCHI: There has been an increase in incidence of ‘Oxygen Minimum Zone’ (OMZ) in the Arabian sea and Bay of Bengal causing a drastic decrease in the fishery resource of the northern Indian Ocean sector, said Dr Satheesh C. Shenoi, director of the Hyderabad- based Indian Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), here.
Dr Shenoi was inaugurating a two-day national conference on “Integrating Biogeochemistry and Eco-system in a changing oceanic environment “at Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies (KUFOS) on Thursday.
“An influx of fertiliser run off from the Indian sub-continent is projected and India is identified as the main contributor for OMZ by the global scientific community.
India is strongly denying the allegation, but we don’t have scientific data or study report to prove the allegation wrong. In order to compensate for this, INCOIS is planning a detailed biogeochemical study in Indian Ocean,” Dr Shenoi said.
Dr A.Ramachandran, vice-chancellor of KUFOS, presided. “Oceans are considered major production zones of oxygen and changes in biodiversity pattern decreases availability of oxygen making it a great challenge for existence of humans,” said Dr Ramachandran. He pointed out that as per the scientific studies an adult requires 550 litres of oxygen per day.
Dr V.M.Victor George, Registrar, Dr T.V. Sankar, director of research, Dr S. Suresh Kumar, director, SOST, Kunal Chakraborty and Anu Gopinath, conference coordinators, spoke.