The Blue Economy (eBook)

This volume defines and analyzes the Blue Economy, a system that encompasses all the economic activities which are happening in and around the ocean within a sustainable development framework, with focus on countries in Asia. This work is timely, as Blue Economy activities account for a significant share of GDPs in the island and coastal economies in the Asia region, sustaining the livelihoods of one of the largest sections of the world's population. This book, therefore, assesses how the Blue Economy contributes to these livelihoods from economic and ecological perspectives and analyzes the various types of ecosystem services provided, and how these services are regulated and maintained. While most studies of the Blue Economy focus only on the economic aspects, this book provides ample statistical data to demonstrate why ecosystem services should additionally be considered for the estimation and valuation of the Blue economy. The book is primarily meant for researchers, students, and teachers in the fields of environmental and ocean economics, sustainable development, and ecosystem services, and will be of further interest to policymakers and government officials working in matters related to the Blue Economy and sustainability policy. 

Dr. Somnath Hazra is a trained ecological economist, with expertise in climate change economics, forest economics, sustainable development, ecosystem services, environmental valuation and policy analysis. He has vast research experience in different Indian research centres as well as teaching experiences at UG and PG level in different universities in West Bengal. He has experience in managing and executing development programmes in various capacities for government, international development organizations and the private sector. He has visited different countries all over the world for performing different project assignments and also for the presentation of research articles on climate change and environmental and development economics. He has more than 50 research articles and six edited volumes related to environmental economics and sustainable development to his credit. 

Dr. Anindya Bhukta, an Associate Professor of Economics in a college in rural West Bengal, is well known for his scholarly articles on Economics and Environment and also for a few outstanding text books in Economics. He has so far written more than 300 hundreds articles on these two subjects. He has authored nearly 70 books in Bengali and English, among which the most remarkable are his two dictionaries in Bengali, one on Economics and the other on Environment. One of his Bengali books on the 'History of Indian Planning' has been highly acclaimed by the readers. He is also very popular to the readers in Bengal for his creative writings. The main essence of his writings is lucidity of language, easy presentation with an in-depth analysis of the subject matter. Presently he is editing an online internationally peer-reviewed journal 'Economy Polity Environment'.