Geographical information systems-based models for offshore floating marine fish cage aquaculture site selection in Tenerife, Canary Islands

Abstract

The present study focuses on the development of a standard methodology for selection of suitable sites for o¡shore (exposed) marine ¢sh-cage farming (£oating cages) of seabream (Sparus aurata) and seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax) in an island environment, using Tenerife as an example. Site selection is a key factor in any aquaculture operation, a¡ecting both success and sustainability and can solve con£icts between di¡erent activities, making a rational use of the coastal space. Site selection was achieved by using geographical information systems (GIS)-based models and related technology to support the decision-making process. The framework for spatial multicriteria decision analysis used in this study began with a recognition and de¢nition of the decision problem. Subsequently, 31 production functions (factors and constraints) were identi¢ed, de¢ned and subdivided into eight submodels. These were then integrated into a GIS database in the form of thematic layers and later scored for standardization. At this stage, the database was veri¢ed by ¢eld sampling to establish the quality of data used. The decision maker's preferences were incorporated into the decision model by assigning weights of relative importance to the evaluation under consideration. These, together with the thematic layers, were incorporated using multicriteria evaluation techniques and simple overlays to provide an overall assessment of possible alternatives. The integration, manipulation and presentation of the results by means of GIS-based models in this sequential and logical £ow of steps proved to be very e¡ective for helping the decision-making process of site selection. Tenerife has very favourable environmental conditions for culture of marine ¢sh and there are no totally unsuitable sites for cage farming identi¢ed in this study. On the other hand, there are few very suitable sites (high scores) either, principally due to the heavy use of the coastline and the con£icts between di¡erent users. From the 228 km 2 of available area for siting cages in the coastal regions with depth less than 50 m, the total area suitable for siting cages (scores 6^8) was 37 km 2 . There are only 0.51km 2 of very suitable areas (score 8) and approximately 5.37 km 2 of suitable (score 7), most of these being located in the southeast of the island. These relatively small areas of suitability should be put into the context of the wider use of the coastal environment around Tenerife. Aquaculture Research, 2005, 36, 946^961 Cage aquaculture site selection in Tenerife O M Pe¤ rez et al. Cage aquaculture site selection in Tenerife O M Pe¤ rez et al. Aquaculture Research, 2005, 36, 946^961 Aquaculture Research, 2005, 36, 946^961 Cage aquaculture site selection in Tenerife O M Pe¤ rez et al. Aquaculture Research, 2005, 36, 946^961 Cage aquaculture site selection in Tenerife O M Pe¤ rez et al. Aquaculture Research, 2005, 36, 946^961 Cage aquaculture site selection in Tenerife O M Pe¤ rez et al.

Integrated GIS and AHP for Marine Aquaculture Site Selection in Penghu Cove in Taiwan

“…Bio-environmental primary productivity is important than local diseases archived the maximum weight of about 0.532 in these sub criteria. As regard to social-economic factors, the legislation is more critical than security and use conflicts in their sub criteria and weight is about 0.648 in the AHP analytic process [27][28][29][30][31]. However, their effects should still be account to derive the GIS suitable map of marine cage culture deployment.…”

A GIS modelling framework to evaluate marine spatial planning scenarios: Co-location of offshore wind farms and aquaculture in the German EEZ

“…trends and anisotropy. The fitted omnidirectional and directional Gaussian, spherical or exponential covariance models were examined with the help of cross validation and a Goodness Of Fit (GOF) parameter yielding the best fitting models [31,32].…”

“…The suitable sites were identified in application of a Geographic Information System (GIS) based Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE), which has been previously used for land based site selection by [28][29][30] and for offshore site selection by [31]. Subsequently, different approaches to criteria aggregation were examined by using the Ordered Weighted Averaging (OWA) technique [32].…”

Using physical environmental parameters and cage engineering design within GIS-based site suitability models for marine aquaculture

“…Geographic information systems (GIS) provide a basis for such spatial modelling, which allows inclusion of a wide range of different locational data, including environmental, infrastructural and socio-economic, into a single decision support system (Nath et al 2000). Through a logical combination of primary data and submodels, GIS allows integration of sophisticated analytical tools for multi-site aquaculture planning and management into an integrated coastal zone management plan aimed at developing organised and considered planning for sustainable development in coastal zones (Vallega 2001, Pérez et al 2005, Ross et al 2009). …”