The mechanics of blue growth: Management of oceanic natural resource use with multiple, interacting sectors

Publisher's version (útgefin grein)Integrated management of multiple economic sectors is a central tenet of blue growth and socially optimal use of ocean-based natural resources, but the mechanisms of implementation remain poorly understood. In this review, we explore the challenges and opportunities of multi-sector management. We describe the roles of key existing sectors (fisheries, transportation, and offshore hydrocarbon) and emerging sectors (aquaculture, tourism, and seabed mining) and the likely synergistic and antagonistic inter-sector interactions. We then review methods to help characterize and quantify interactions and decision-support tools to help managers balance and optimize around interactions.This work is a deliverable of the project Green Growth Based on Marine Resources: Ecological and Socio-Economic Constraints (GreenMAR), which is funded by Nordforsk. We would also like to acknowledge the National Science Foundation grant GEO-1211972.Peer Reviewe

Resilience through risk management: cooperative insurance in small-holder aquaculture systems

Aquaculture is a booming industry. It currently supplies almost half of all fish and shellfish eaten today, and it continues to grow faster than any other food production sector. But it is immature relative to terrestrial crop and livestock sectors, and as a consequence it lags behind in terms of the use of aquaculture specific financial risk management tools. In particular, the use of insurance instruments to manage weather related losses is little used. In the aquaculture industry there is a need for new insurance products that achieve both financial gains, in terms of reduced production and revenue risk, and environmental wins, in terms of incentivizing improved management practices. Here, we have developed a cooperative form of indemnity insurance for application to small-holder aquaculture communities in developing nations. We use and advance the theory of risk pools, applying it to an aquaculture community in Myanmar, using empirical data recently collected from a comprehensive farm survey. These data were used to parameterize numerical simulations of this aquaculture system with and without a risk pool. Results highlight the benefits and costs of a risk pool, for various combinations of key parameters. This information reveals a path forward for creating new risk management products for aquaculturalists around the world

Supporting Information, Tables, and Figures from The growth of finfish in global open-ocean aquaculture under climate change

Aquaculture production is projected to expand from land-based operations to the open ocean as demand for seafood grows and competition increases for inputs to land-based aquaculture, such as freshwater and suitable land. In contrast to land-based production, open-ocean aquaculture is constrained by oceanographic factors, such as current speeds and seawater temperature, which are dynamic in time and space, and cannot easily be controlled. As such, the potential for offshore aquaculture to increase seafood production is tied to the physical state of the oceans. We employ a novel spatial model to estimate the potential of open-ocean finfish aquaculture globally, given physical, biological and technological constraints. Finfish growth potential for three common aquaculture species representing different thermal guilds—Atlantic salmon (<i>Salmo salar</i>), gilthead seabream (<i>Sparus aurata</i>) and cobia (<i>Rachycentron canadum</i>)—is compared across species and regions and with climate change, based on outputs of a high-resolution global climate model. Globally, there are ample areas that are physically suitable for fish growth and potential expansion of the nascent aquaculture industry. The effects of climate change are heterogeneous across species and regions, but areas with existing aquaculture industries are likely to see increases in growth rates. In areas where climate change results in reduced growth rates, adaptation measures, such as selective breeding, can probably offset potential production losses

Economic sustainability of marine aquaculture : a report to the Marine Aquaculture Task Force

This paper was written at the request of, and to provide background information for the work of, the Marine Aquaculture Task Force, a project of the Woods Hole Oceanographic InstitutionIn the future, marine aquaculture production is likely to expand significantly in the United States and abroad. This paper deals with the present and future economic sustainability of aquaculture in the United States in light of this expectation. Economic sustainability requires the allocation of scarce resources to generate economic profits for investments in physical capital, knowledge, and technology that may endow future generations with the capacity to be at least as well off as the current generation. Discussions about sustainability (or sustainable development) focus mainly on fairness in the distribution of economic welfare across generations. Due to this focus on intergenerational equity, international political discussions of sustainable development often are not directly concerned with economic efficiency. Economic efficiency is a necessary condition for achieving sustainable development, however, because it does not make sense to waste resources without cause. And efficiency is likely to increase the net benefits that can be shared both within and across generations.With support from The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Lenfest Foundation

Nutritional Attributes, Substitutability, Scalability, and Environmental Intensity of an Illustrative Subset of Current and Future Protein Sources for Aquaculture Feeds: Joint Consideration of Potential Synergies and Trade-offs

Aquaculture is anticipated to play an increasingly important role in global food security because it may represent one of the best opportunities to increase the availability of healthy animal protein in the context of resource and environmental constraints. However, the growth and sustainability of the aquaculture industry faces important bottlenecks with respect to feed resources, which may be derived from diverse sources. Here, using a small but representative subset of potential aquafeed inputs (which we selected to highlight a range of relevant attributes), we review a core suite of considerations that need to be accommodated in concert in order to overcome key bottlenecks to the continued development and expansion of the aquaculture industry. Specifically, we evaluate the nutritional attributes, substitutability, scalability, and resource and environmental intensity of each input. On this basis, we illustrate a range of potential synergies and trade-offs within and across attributes that are characteristic of ingredient types. We posit that the recognition and management of such synergies and trade-offs is imperative to satisfying the multi-objective decision-making associated with sustainable increases in future aquaculture production

A 20-Year Retrospective Review of Global Aquaculture

The sustainability of aquaculture has been debated intensely since 2000, when a review on the net contribution of aquaculture to world fish supplies was published in Nature. This paper reviews the developments in global aquaculture from 1997 to 2017, incorporating all industry sub-sectors and highlighting the integration of aquaculture in the global food system. Inland aquaculture—especially in Asia—has contributed the most to global production volumes and food security. Major gains have also occurred in aquaculture feed efficiency and fish nutrition, lowering the fish-in–fish-out ratio for all fed species, although the dependence on marine ingredients persists and reliance on terrestrial ingredients has increased. The culture of both molluscs and seaweed is increasingly recognized for its ecosystem services; however, the quantification, valuation, and market development of these services remain rare. The potential for molluscs and seaweed to support global nutritional security is underexploited. Management of pathogens, parasites, and pests remains a sustainability challenge industry-wide, and the effects of climate change on aquaculture remain uncertain and difficult to validate. Pressure on the aquaculture industry to embrace comprehensive sustainability measures during this 20-year period have improved the governance, technology, siting, and management in many cases