Sustainable Automated Aquaponic Systems for Highly Urbanized areas in Sri Lanka

Agriculture is currently a significant contributor to the Sri Lankan economy, but there is still a lack of integration of modern technology with agriculture. Over the past few decades, many people are moving away from agricultural occupations due to urbanization. As a result, the higher portion of the food items in the urban areas has to be transported from distant agrarian lands. This has led to creating several issues such as food getting damage by transportation, quality reduction, and the increment of food wastage. As a consequence, customers are experiencing high food prices. Moreover, using water for agriculture has become a widely concerning matter worldwide, especially in urbanized areas. To overcome the emerged problems, Aquaponic systems for urban cultivation can be introduced. Aquaponics is an innovative and sustainable production system and plays a critical role in the environmental and socio-economic sustainability of the agricultural sector. Aquaponics system can be producing healthy local, fresh food products with a short supply chain in terms of a pesticide-free environment. This will be the best solution for highly urbanized areas, and it is already successful in many parts of the world. Therefore, this article mainly focuses on introducing an eco-friendly aquaponic system design for highly urbanized areas in Sri Lanka.