Global Climate Change (GCC) is the major challenge that humanity is facing nowadays. Mexico is one of the most affected countries by the GCC. Aquaculture is strongly impacted by GCC today and will be so in the future. Tropical storms, typhoons, cyclones, floods, high winds, tornadoes, and extreme temperatures are some of the natural disasters affecting aquaculture on land or offshore. This is due to its strategic location on the coast or in low-flooding areas, which are needed for water availability. Most farms in Mexico are located along both coasts, East (Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea) and West (Pacific and Gulf of California), and are mainly of freshwater ashore, mostly tilapia, although there is saltwater in shrimp farms in the Northeast.
The state of Veracruz (located on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico) is impacted by strong hurricanes and tropical storms each year. This state is one of the largest producers of tilapia in the country. In 2010, three hurricanes in a row (Frank, Karl, and Matthew), with a month of difference between them, strongly affected all aquaculture farms in the state. Till today, many producers have not recovered from the damage; 200 units of commercial production and approximately 2000 small household units were affected, and not just in Veracruz but in other states like Oaxaca, Tabasco, and Chiapas were also disasters that were not considered. The production in Veracruz dropped from 10,000 t / year to 2,000 t, and the final product price increased from $40/kg to $65/kg at the consumer level. The GCC is not only a hurricane but high and low temperatures, and the present (2024) very strong drought as well affecting the water supply. The temperature extreme as the variation during months and days impacts aquaculture production too, with slow growth during cool months and some infections like Streptococcus and Exophthalmia, during Spring and Summer reaching up to 45o C on wing and 35o C in tank’s water. The objective of this research was to estimate the risk index for each fish farm according to its location.
Environmental and natural conditions and socioeconomic factors were evaluated. The index goes from 0 to 1 depending on its risk of suffering extreme climate events and difficulties in recovering from external shock using the socioeconomics factor, for instance, if they have insurance for the biomass and infrastructure or not. Most of the farms show an index higher than 5. It is, sometime in the future they will face an external shock by GCC.