AquaNurch by NatureDots: Building a Nature-Positive Future for Freshwater Food Systems 

Freshwater is the backbone of global food security, and yet 70% is polluted, and 90% of freshwater fish production is biologically unsustainable. Across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, over 100 million people rely on freshwater fisheries for food and livelihood, but small-scale fish farmers are increasingly trapped by poor water quality, disease, and unpredictable weather. AquaNurch, a pioneering initiative by India-based NatureDots, aims to answer a deceptively simple question: what truly makes water healthy? 

Launched in 2019, AquaNurch is a digital twin system built specifically for different types of water bodies. At its core is an AI-foundational model that decodes water health and provides fish farmers with hyperlocal, predictive insights, without expensive hardware. Traditional aquaculture tech can cost over $4,000 per hectare—almost as much as a farmer earns in an entire season. According to the initiative, AquaNurch uses up to 80% less data collection efforts, and 83% less energy than standard digital twins, making intelligent water management accessible, scalable, and nature-positive.  

For the 15 million freshwater fish farmers in India alone, AquaNurch offers more than just technology, it offers resilience. Stocked ponds are financial lifelines. When water quality collapses, entire households lose both food and income. By embedding farmers into the intelligence loop, AquaNurch bridges the digital divide, turning low-data rural landscapes into high-impact knowledge ecosystems. The initiative states that over 9,000 farmers are now connected to the platform, contributing ground-truth insights and receiving real-time intelligence in their local languages. The results have been impressive: fish mortality dropped from 30-40% to under 5%, input costs fell by 10–20%, and productivity doubled or tripled.  

AquaNurch is also more than just a farm tool. Its modular architecture serves multiple users: Twingills for aquaculture, Twinity for water utilities, and Twinsfera for conservation. The same intelligence that helps a rural fish farmer in India also supports a reservoir manager in East Africa or a fish cooperative in the Pacific. According to the initiative, AquaNurch has collected 8+ billion water datapoints, diagnosed 3.5 million fish diseases, and saved 2.7 billion liters of freshwater. By 2035, the initiative aims to de-risk over 150,000 hectares of fish farms and save over 2.7 trillion liters of water globally. 

As freshwater ecosystems face mounting pressures from climate change and urban expansion, AquaNurch provides a systemic solution, turning fishponds into smart, regenerative food systems. It sees water not as an isolated resource, but as the living, connected core of our food planet. With a nature-positive model and a globally scalable platform, AquaNurch is redefining how we think about aquatic foods—and giving water the intelligence it deserves. 

Learn more about AquaNurch by NatureDots.

Written by Sarah Souli
Photos provided by NatureDots