Offshore aquaculture: Spatial planning principles for sustainable development

Abstract

Marine aquaculture is expanding into deeper offshore environments in response to growing consumer demand for seafood, improved technology, and limited potential to increase wild fisheries catches. Sustainable development of aquaculture will require quantification and minimization of its impacts on other ocean‐based activities and the environment through scientifically informed spatial planning. However, the scientific literature currently provides limited direct guidance for such planning. Here, we employ an ecological lens and synthesize a broad multidisciplinary literature to provide insight into the interactions between offshore aquaculture and the surrounding environment across a spectrum of spatial scales. While important information gaps remain, we find that there is sufficient research for informed decisions about the effects of aquaculture siting to achieve a sustainable offshore aquaculture industry that complements other uses of the marine environment.

Multi‐stakeholder perspectives on spatial planning processes for mariculture in the Mediterranean and Black Sea

“…The application of aquaculture spatial planning seeks to overcome such conflict through a logical and comprehensive process‐driven mechanism, but as Gentry et al . () point out, there is a persistent lack of information on how such a process can be fully realized.…”

“…Activities are to some extent interlinked by potential for conflict with other uses and users and have distinct ecological and social consequences. The application of aquaculture spatial planning seeks to overcome such conflict through a logical and comprehensive process-driven mechanism, but as Gentry et al (2016) point out, there is a persistent lack of information on how such a process can be fully realized.…”

“…The premise of the ecosystem approach (EA) stems from work undertaken throughout the 1990s, through the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) (UNCBD 1993;CBD Secretariat, 2000). The application of a broad-based EA is spreading as a policy-driven, science-based process for the management of all human activities, and in the marine environment the approach has as its goal the establishment of healthy and productive seas and oceans (Reum et al 2015;Gentry et al 2016;Oates & Dodds 2017). EA has progressively filtered through to fields including fisheries (Garcia et al 2003;Bianchi 2008) and marine spatial planning (Douvere 2008) and aquaculture (Soto et al 2008) under the EAA.…”

“…; Gentry et al . ; Oates & Dodds ). EA has progressively filtered through to fields including fisheries (Garcia et al .…”

Offshore aquaculture in the United States: Untapped potential in need of smart policy

“…Furthermore, many of the potential negative effects of offshore aquaculture can be mitigated by smart spatial planning (16), especially because the amount of area needed for large volumes of production are surprisingly small. Interactions with other uses and the environment-both positive and negative-and the productivity of an aquaculture farm are all highly dependent on where aquaculture is located.…”