Circular Aquaculture Innovation/Global/2024
Integrated multi-trophic aquaculture systems and circularity assessment
Global Seafood Alliance
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This 2024 technical article from the Global Seafood Alliance’s Responsible Seafood Advocate examines integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) systems and approaches to assessing their circularity. IMTA systems combine fed species such as fish with extractive species such as shellfish and seaweed, which take up particulate and dissolved nutrients released by the fed species. This can reduce nutrient discharge and the risk of eutrophication while producing additional marketable products. The article discusses how to evaluate the bioremediation performance of IMTA, and proposes resource-efficiency indicators that can standardise the measurement of nutrient-recycling rates across systems. Standardised indicators are important for comparing different designs, demonstrating environmental benefits to regulators and buyers, and supporting certification or eco-labelling. The Global Seafood Alliance is an industry organisation that promotes responsible seafood practices, so the article is written for a broad audience including producers, researchers and supply-chain actors. Classed as direct and contextual evidence under Circular Economy and Resource Efficiency, it is transferable to Southeast Asian contexts. It is useful for selecting circularity indicators in monitoring and evaluation frameworks, for communicating IMTA benefits to stakeholders, and for complementing more technical peer-reviewed literature on nutrient circularity.
Additional Details
- Author(s)
- Responsible Seafood Advocate – Global Seafood Alliance
- Type
- Technical article / learning material
- Aquaculture / Fisheries Dimension
- IMTA fish–shellfish–seaweed systems
- Relevance to Climate Aquaculture
- Direct
- Thematic Area
- Circular Economy & Resource Efficiency
- Climate Issue
- Nutrient discharge and eutrophication
- Adaptation / Key Contribution
- Bioremediation and resource-efficiency indicators to standardise nutrient-recycling rates
- How to Use / Notes
- Useful for indicator selection and stakeholder communication