Arushi Verma¹, Arpita Sinha¹, Akshay Verma^1,2 and Anita Kamra Verma²*

¹Agratam India Foundation, RTR Marg, New Delhi-110022, India 2Agratam Nanobiohub, R.K. Puram, New Delhi-110022, India

*Corresponding Author: Anita Kamra Verma, Agratam Nanobiohub, R.K. Puram, New Delhi-110022, India.

Received: July 29, 2026; Published: November 04, 2026

Success in the aquaculture sector in India is evidenced by its extensive contributions to food security, since the fish captured from fresh water and marine bodies are unable to meet the existing requirement for fish in the country. Interest in sustainable aquaculture and the “blue economy” has intensified globally, with freshwater aquaculture increasingly being recognized as a scalable route to reducing hunger, generating rural livelihoods, and diversifying nutrition-sensitive food systems. The current evidence on the ecological and economic outcomes of bio-ecological remediation in freshwater aquaculture systems is being reviewed synthesizing the state of knowledge and identifying gaps that constrain wider adoption. Building on our earlier field initiative designed to secure sustainable livelihoods and food security in an Indian state where close to 100 million people live below the poverty line, with an emphasis on land-based and freshwater aquaculture aligned to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) we examine how bio- ecological remediation can be integrated into practice at scale. The major production systems used today including earthen pond culture, closed-loop recirculating systems, marine cage culture, and aquaponics, and describe how artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled monitoring and decision-support tools are being layered onto these systems to improve water quality management, feeding efficiency, and disease surveillance. Because fish is a compact source of high-quality animal protein (approximately 20% protein by weight) along with essential amino acids, vitamins, and micronutrients, the choice of production system materially affects the nutritional value delivered to consumers. A persistent constraint on scaling intensive freshwater aquaculture is the recurrence of bacterial infections and the ecological degradation organic loading, eutrophication, and loss of microbial balance” that predisposes ponds to disease outbreaks. We reaffirm that bio-ecological remediation, which uses microbial consortia, biofilters, phytoremediation, and integrated multi-trophic approaches to restore ecological equilibrium in culture environments, offers a scientifically grounded and economically viable pathway to sustainable intensification. We further review a complementary tier of emerging strategies that include antimicrobial peptides, phage therapy, biosurfactants and bacteriocins, vaccination, phyto-therapeutics, nanotechnology-based diagnostics and remediation, and AI-driven disease diagnostics that act more directly on pathogens or host immunity while remaining compatible with ecological restoration goals. This review concludes with a research and policy agenda for mainstreaming bio-ecological remediation within India’s freshwater aquaculture sector.

Keywords: Sustainable Aquaculture; Freshwater Fisheries; Bio-Ecological Remediation; Aquaponics; Economic Development

• The problem is not the design: It is the distance between a well-written plan and the last-mile field unit at the end of a village road. From the field, five gaps stand out.
• Too few hands: A report to Parliament in December 2022 showed 28,328 field veterinarians in the public sector against 36,623 sanctioned posts, while DAHD has put the national requirement at 65,000 veterinarians [23]. When one officer must vaccinate, treat, inseminate, report and enter data, prevention is the first thing to slip.
• Slow answers: Some states now confirm diseases quickly in modern labs. Others still send samples long distances and wait [13]. In an outbreak, a week's delay can decide whether a disease stays in one village or reaches ten.
• Data that does not talk: The Bharat Pashudhan Portal and NADRS are real progress. Anyone who has cleaned village-level ear-tag records know how much work goes into making them reliable. But animal data still rarely meets the human health data in IHIP [17]. The rabies gap above shows what that costs.
• The invisible worker: India's National Livestock Policy of 2013 states that around 70 per cent of the labour in the livestock sector comes from women [3]. Yet official surveys barely see them. Using national Time Use Survey data, IFPRI researchers found that women's recorded participation in livestock work rose only from 11 per cent in 2019 to 15 per cent in 2024 [12]. They also warn of a "double burden", where market-oriented livestock work adds to women's duties instead of being shared within the household. If the person who first notices a sick cow is missing from our statistics, she is also missing from our early warning system.
• The ground is shifting: Changing rainfall and heat are moving the zones where ticks and mosquitoes thrive [14]. At the same time, antibiotic misuse is building resistance. India ranks as the fourth-largest consumer of antibiotics in food animal production worldwide [22], and its antimicrobial use intensity in food animals was estimated at 43 per cent above the global average in 2020 [16]. There is a hopeful sign: in July 2025, India banned 37 antimicrobial drugs, including 18 antibiotics, for use in livestock production [9]. But a ban works only if someone in the village is there to enforce it.

What will actually make the difference

• Strengthen the states: Every vaccination is given and every outbreak is confirmed at state and district level. Filling sanctioned veterinary posts would do more than any new scheme.
• Connect the data: Animal, human and environmental surveillance need common standards, so a cluster of sick animals can alert a public health officer in the same week.
• Count and train women: Pashu Sakhis and women livestock keepers should be recognised, trained and equipped as the first detectors of disease [24].
• Prepare for a changing climate: Surveillance and antibiotic stewardship must follow the new disease seasons and vector zones [1].
• Fund preparedness in calm times: Being ready only works if the money keeps flowing between crises.

Where one health will be won

One Health will not be won in Delhi or Nagpur alone. It will be won in the cattle shed, the village dispensary and the district laboratory, by people who are trained, connected and trusted.

 The next time you see a woman milking a buffalo in the morning light, remember this. She may be the first person in the country to notice that something is wrong. The framework is ready. The real test is whether our systems can hear her in time.

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Citation

Citation: Anita Kamra Verma, et al. “Sustainable Aquaculture by Bio-Ecological Remediation of Freshwater Aquaculture Environments". Acta Scientific Veterinary Sciences 8.4 (2026): 33-49.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2026 Anita Kamra Verma, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.