Marine aquaculture: A developing domain needing thorough planning, management and novel technological supports

According to the FAO statistics, the output of world aquatic products reached 177.8 million tons in 2020, of which the fishing and aquaculture marine products accounted for 63%.¹ As the wild fisheries have almost reached their maximum sustainable level, marine aquaculture has the potential to increase its contribution to the global food system and provide valuable ecosystem services. However, sustainable marine aquaculture needs systemic planning and management to efficiently deal with a number of serious challenges, such as environmental pollution, feed exploitation and disease control. In this issue of Reviews in Aquaculture, there are some timely articles focusing on these hot issues.

The first of these, a Sena De Silva paper by Falconer et al,² emphasizes the importance of planning, licensing and governance to marine aquaculture. As marine aquaculture covers a diverse range of species and spreads to different locations throughout the world, the production technologies, farm management strategies, and the environmental, economic and social impacts are also different. Some countries have specific legislation, while in others, aquaculture is governed under broader laws (e.g., environmental management). In this article, United Kingdom is used as a detailed case study to show the challenges and uncertainty that industry, regulators and policymakers face across interacting jurisdictions. ‘Planning and licensing’ is not a single issue and involves a wide range of interacting interdisciplinary considerations, so frameworks need to be fluid, versatile and adaptive. Meanwhile, the need to address knowledge gaps and use of decision support tools are also addressed in this article. Marine spatial planning is promoted as a way of planning and managing different resource users to minimize conflict. Geographic information systems and spatial modelling can be used to find suitable locations that fit the specified criteria. Planning and licensing can be highly complicated, so sharing the experiences as well as efficient ways to overcome these challenges is important to ensure sustainable marine aquaculture in the 21st century.

As a case evidence, another article in this issue summarizes the transitions and challenges in China's abalone culture industry over the past 60 years.³ Even though China is the leading global abalone producer, many problems like a reduction in nearshore space, natural disasters, high temperatures and low oxygen levels in the sea have accompanied the rapid development of this industry. In recent years, big data technology has been initially used in China's aquaculture industry and access to big data for aquaculture is even more automated by the internet of things. These innovative facilities and technologies are steering the abalone aquaculture industry towards a technology-driven high-quality development path, and further contribute to accomplishing the goal of ‘Carbon Neutrality’.

Another two cases of seaweed aquaculture and sea lice control, respectively, in this issue also highlight the necessity of comprehensive planning and management in marine aquaculture.^{4, 5} Traditional seaweed aquaculture is mainly practiced in nearshore, wave-sheltered or semi-sheltered waters. However, these areas are limited and often contested, and to meet future demand, production must move to ‘non-traditional’ regions and into less contested waters offshore. In the review article of seaweed aquaculture, the authors provide an overview of the cultivation technology and the suitability to offshore conditions of three Australian staple seaweed species for offshore aquaculture.⁴ This review article will inform research and development programmes to advance offshore seaweed aquaculture in southern Australia and globally.

Sea lice have been a serious threat to global aquaculture, especially in marine salmonids aquaculture, and a review paper in this issue discusses the emergence of sea lice control to salmon farming in Chile.⁵ This article illustrates the management actions taken to control sea lice and examines how health management of sea lice can be integrated into the broader health management of salmonids. Because the geographical and oceanographic characteristics influence the lice abundance, the sea lice control management should be designed and performed with the support from multidisciplinary research studies and practices. In this article, some sea lice control or preventative methods applied in Chile are introduced, and a number of risk factors are also raised for more attention.

Aquaculture industry is considered by financial institutions as high risk due to failures caused by epizootics, natural disasters and poor planning and monitoring. In this issue, a review paper highlights the importance and necessity of application of bioeconomic modelling in aquaculture, to plan, monitor and determine cost effectiveness and risk, to reduce uncertainty and increase profits. Bioeconomic modelling is a progressive branch of social science that seeks to integrate the disciplines of economics and biology to create theories that better explain economic events using a biological basis. Bioeconomic modelling in aquaculture actually began in the 1980s. However, the authors used meta-analysis to analyse the application of bioeconomic modelling in aquaculture over the last 26 years (1994–2020) and found that the use of the model is decreasing, especially in marine aquaculture. In addition, the authors propose that the low diffusion among producers, planners and financial institutions of the advantages of the models and the lack of analytical software are limiting factors in the application of bioeconomic modelling in aquaculture.

Considering the more complicated situation in the sea than that in freshwater, marine aquaculture faces a number of practical threats and needs more multidisciplinary research studies. Several articles published in this issue bring the high importance to carry out thorough planning and management in marine aquaculture with the support from application of novel technology. This could help to prevent negative effects on organism health, marine environment and seafood safety, and increase culture efficiency. These articles not only review systemically the present knowledge and opinions from government and scientists in marine aquaculture but also provide some valuable cases and practical operations. These could be very useful references for government and academic community in performing marine aquaculture planning and management.