Aquaponics and sustainability: The comparison of two different aquaponic techniques using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

Forchino, Andrea Alberto; Lourguioui, Hichem; Brigolin, Daniele; Pastres, Roberto

doi:10.1016/j.aquaeng.2017.03.002

Cited by 114 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…On the contrary, studies in mild climate cities found that the UFP typology and the productivity of the system would determine whether UFP has environmental benefits compared to conventional food systems [18,31]. Finally, Forchino et al [44] and Maucieri et al [22] investigated the environmental impacts of aquaponics, where the production of fish and vegetables are integrated, paying attention to different production techniques [44] as well as the potential use of aquaponics as an educational tool [22]. On the other hand, Grard et al [47] quantified the ecosystem services provided by rooftop gardens that use organic waste flow from the city as a substrate, thereby improving urban metabolism and enhancing the local circular economy.…”

Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting the Sustainability Concept of Urban Food Production from a Stakeholders’ Perspective

Sanyé‐Mengual¹,

Orsini²,

Gianquinto³

2018

Sustainability

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Urban Food Production (UFP) initiatives are expanding worldwide to enhance urban food production while contributing to the development of sustainable cities in a three-bottom perspective (environment, society, economy). Although the sustainability aspects of UFS have been addressed in the literature, there is a need to set a sustainability framework for UFP based on the concepts and the understanding of the stakeholders as a basis for quantifying their sustainability and for developing effective policy-making. This paper evaluates the concepts of the UFP sustainability from a stakeholders' perspective through participatory methods and network analyses. Two different workshops were organized in the city of Bologna (Italy), where mind-mapping exercises to define the environmental, economic and social sustainability elements of UFP were performed. This bottom-up approach unveiled a comprehensive and complex vision of sustainable UFP, the relevance of certain sustainability elements and key aspects to take into consideration for the development of UFP and effective policy-making. The existence of bidimensional and tridimensional concepts indicated priorities, synergies and trade-offs among the dimensions of sustainability. The multi-scalar nature of UFP suggested that specific policies can be supported by global schemes (e.g., Sustainable Development Goals) and that UFP can be a local tool for democracy and equity at lower scales.

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Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting the Sustainability Concept of Urban Food Production from a Stakeholders’ Perspective

Sanyé‐Mengual¹,

Orsini²,

Gianquinto³

2018

Sustainability

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…In the context of aquaponics, few comprehensive LCAs exist, and those that do have focused mainly on tilapia and basil production . Other studies have not performed full and comparable LCA studies; however, they have considered water and nutrient consumption, finding that aquaponics systems in general consumed less material-based inputs than conventional production systems (Love et al 2015;Xie and Rosentrater 2015;Delaide et al 2017;Forchino et al 2017;Maucieri et al 2018). Xie and Rosentrater (2015) found a range dependent on the size of the production facility of 3.3 to 18 kg CO 2 E per kilogram of fish produced, with the larger scale facility having a smaller environmental impact per unit mass of produced fish.…”

Section: Environmental Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With respect to the species of seafood considered, in aquaponic studies tilapia, carp, and rainbow trout are the 3 most studied species (Hollmann 2013;Hindelang et al 2014;Love et al 2015;Xie and Rosentrater 2015;Boxman et al 2017;Fang et al 2017;Cohen et al 2018;Maucieri et al 2018;Silva et al 2018). Leafy greens have been the predominantly studied product in aquaponic production (such as basil, lettuce, pak choi, and kale) (Hirschfeld et al 2008;Xie and Rosentrater 2015;Delaide et al 2016;Boxman et al 2017;Fang et al 2017;Forchino et al 2017;Cohen et al 2018;Maucieri et al 2018;Silva et al 2018), although more exotic crops such as tomatoes have also been studied (Hindelang et al 2014;Love et al 2015;Schmautz et al 2017). This ranges from allocating the total environmental impacts to fish (Boxman et al 2017), vegetables (Forchino et al 2017), combined mass produced (Hindelang et al 2014), and time period of operation (Fang et al 2017;Silva et al 2018).…”

Section: Environmental Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable Seafood and Vegetable Production: Aquaponics as a Potential Opportunity in Urban Areas

Ghamkhar

Ashton

et al. 2019

Integr Envir Assess & Manag

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Global population growth will increase pressures on current food systems in order to supply adequate protein and produce to the increasingly urban world population. The environmental impact of food production is a critical area of study as it influences water and air quality, ecosystem functions, and energy consumption. Aquaponics (in which seafood and vegetables are grown in a closed‐loop system) has the potential to reduce the environmental impact of food production. A review of the current environmental and economic considerations is provided in order to identify current research gaps. Research gaps exist with respect to 1) diversity of aquatic and plant species studied; 2) inconsistent bounds, scope, and lifetime across studies; 3) diverse allocation of the environmental and economic impacts to the coproducts; 4) scale of systems considered; 5) transportation of produced food; and 6) presence of heavy metals, pests, and pathogens with human health implications. These aspects require increased attention to close the existing gaps prior to widescale deployment of these systems for increased sustainable food production toward satisficing human needs. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2019;00:1–12. © 2019 SETAC

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“…The choice of hydroponic type for an AP system may be based on the independent advantages conferred by any particular hydroponic component (Lennard and Leonard, 2006) or on life cycle assessment impact (Forchino et al, 2017). All the methods represented in Figure 1 can be integrated in an aquaponic system (Pattillo, 2017).…”

Section: Hydroponic Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hydroponic systems and water management in aquaponics: a review

et al. 2017

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Aquaponics (AP), the integrated multi-trophic fish and plants production in quasi-closed recirculating system, is one of the newest sustainable food production systems. The hydroponic component of the AP directly influences water quality (in turn influencing fish growth and health), and water consumption (through evapotranspiration) of the entire system. In order to assess the role of the design and the management of the hydroponic component on the overall performance, and water consumption of the aquaponics, 122 papers published from 1979 to 2017 were reviewed. Although no unequivocal results were found, the nutrient film technique appears in several aspects less efficient than medium-based or floating raft hydroponics. The best system performance in terms of fish and plant growth, and the highest nutrient removal from water was achieved at water flow between 0.8 L min -1 and 8.0 L min -1 . Data on water consumption of aquaponics are scarce, and no correlation between the ratio of hydroponic unit surface/fish tank volume and the system water loss was found. However, daily water loss was positively correlated with the hydroponic surface/fish tank volume ratio if the same experimental conditions and/or systems were compared. The plant species grown in hydroponics influenced the daily water loss in aquaponics, whereas no effect was exerted by the water flow (reciprocating flood/drain cycle or constant flow) or type (medium-based, floating or nutrient film technique) of hydroponics.

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Aquaponics and sustainability: The comparison of two different aquaponic techniques using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

Cited by 114 publications

References 37 publications

Revisiting the Sustainability Concept of Urban Food Production from a Stakeholders’ Perspective

Revisiting the Sustainability Concept of Urban Food Production from a Stakeholders’ Perspective

Sustainable Seafood and Vegetable Production: Aquaponics as a Potential Opportunity in Urban Areas

Hydroponic systems and water management in aquaponics: a review

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