Citation: Adhikari S, Mahanty D, Ikmail S, Sarkar S, Rathod R and Pillai BR. Carbon Storage in Sediments of Freshwater Fishponds of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, and West Bengal, India. Austin J Environ Toxicol. 2019; 5(1): 1026. Austin J Environ Toxicol - Volume 5 Issue 1 - 2019 ISSN: 2472-372X | www.austinpublishinggroup.com Adhikari et al. © All rights are reserved Austin Journal of Environmental Toxicology Open Access Abstract Considering the impact of climate change on aquaculture practices, carbon storage by fsh pond sediment could mitigate some emission of greenhouse gases form the fsh ponds. The potentials of carbon storage by the sediments of fsh ponds of Ganjam, Keonjhargarh, and Puri districts of Odisha, Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, Moyna and Tamluk of East Medinipur, Purulia, Bankura, Murshidabad, South and North 24 Parganas districts of West Bengal, India were estimated. It is evident from the results that with an increase in fsh production, the C storage decreased. The production per crop in the present study increased from 1815±376 kg/ha to 8351±1882 kg/ha and accordingly, the C storage/kg fsh decreased from 1.44±0.73 to 0.62±0.21. The three types of combined humus carbon (loosely, stably and tightly combined humus carbon) were also analyzed for some sediment in the present study. The loosely combined humus varied from 36 to 43 per cent, stably combined humus varied from 4 to 6 per cent, and tightly combined humus varied from 53 to 58 per cent, respectively. Among the three combined humus, loosely combined form constitute about 40 percent of the total soil organic carbon, and thus, carbon sequestration could be 60 percent of the total soil carbon storage. Keywords: Carbon storage; Sequestration; Sediments; Aquaculture ponds Research Article Carbon Storage in Sediments of Freshwater Fishponds of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, and West Bengal, India Adhikari S 1 *, Mahanty D 1 , Ikmail S 2 , Sarkar S 2 , Rathod R 3 and Pillai BR 2 1 Regional Research Centre (RRC) of ICAR-Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture, West Bengal, India 2 ICAR-Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture, India 3 Regional Research Centre (RRC) of ICAR-CIFA, Penamaluru Fish Seed Farm, India *Corresponding author: Subhendu Adhikari, Regional Research Centre (RRC) of ICAR-Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture, Rahara, Kolkata, West Bengal, India Received: September 27, 2019; Accepted: October 29, 2019; Published: November 05, 2019 Introduction Increase in greenhouse gases (GHGs) concentration in the atmosphere is the main reason for climate change as accumulated GHGs in the atmosphere intercepts outgoing infra-red radiation which traps heat and raises the temperature in the atmosphere. Te carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) level has increased by 31 per cent, from 280 ppmv in 1850 to 380 ppmv in 2005, and is now increasing at 1.7 ppmv/ yr [1]. With this increase, there is a growing public and scientifc concern about the carbon sequestration potential of various terrestrial ecosystems especially wetlands [2]. It has been suggested that the sequestration of atmospheric CO 2 into soil organic carbon (SOC) could contribute signifcantly to adhere with the Kyoto Protocol to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases [3,4]. In stabilizing the atmospheric abundance of CO 2 and other greenhouse gases to mitigate the risks of global warming [5]. [6] suggested that there are three strategies of lowering CO 2 emissions: (i) reducing the global energy use, (ii) developing low or no-carbon fuel, and (iii) sequestering CO 2 from point sources or atmosphere through natural and engineering techniques. Fifeen options of stabilizing the atmospheric concentration of CO 2 by 2050 at approximately 550 ppm have been outlined by [7]. Tree of these 15 options were based on carbon sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems [8]. In this respect, aquaculture ponds can play potential role in carbon sequestration. During the last three decades world food fsh production of aquaculture has expanded by almost 12 times, with an average annual rate of 8.8 per cent. Presently 600 aquatic species are raised in captivity in about 190 countries for production in farming systems of varying input intensities and technological sophistication (FAO, 2016). Tus, there is immense scope to store and capture carbon by the fshponds to reduce and ofset the chance of emitting diferent GHGs from the diferent aquaculture systems. Tus the objectives of the present study are: (i) to assess the potentials of carbon storage in diferent aquaculture ponds of three diferent states in India; (ii) to determine the extent of carbon sequestration of pond sediments. Materials and Methods Aquaculture ponds were chosen for the carbon storage study from the Ganjam (19.5860° N, 84.6897° E), Keonjhargarh (21.6289° N, 85.5817° E) and Puri (19.8134° N, 85.8315° E) districts of Odisha, Kaikaluru Mandal (16.5527° N, 81.2129° E) of Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, and Moyna (22.2738° N, 87.7697° E), Tamluk block (22.2788° N, 87.9188° E) of East Medinipur, Purulia (23.3321° N, 86.3652° E), Bankura (23.1645° N, 87.0624° E), Murshidabad (24.2290° N, 88.2461° E), south 24 Parganas (22.1352° N, 88.4016° E) and North 24 Parganas (22.6168° N, 88.4029° E) districts of West Bengal, India. Overall, the culture period in these areas varied from 180 to 300 days. Te culture practices in these ponds are shown in Table 1. Calculation of carbon storage Soil carbon storage was measured by CORE Method. In this method, sediment samples from the pond was collected by a soil sampler (Corer) in such a way that only the sediment core was collected, no bottom soil below the sediment was collected. Te sediment dry bulk density was measured and the sediment organic carbon was determined by CHN Analyzer. Te carbon storage (Mg C/ha, mega gram C/ha) was calculated as per [9] as follows = [C (%)*dry bulk density (Mg/m 3 )*depth (m) * 10 4 m 2 ]/100.