Coastal and Marine Environments

Yeqiao Wang, Yeqiao Wang

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429804717
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Ciencias biológicas
• Subtopic: Conservación y Protección del Medio Ambiente

Authored by world-class scientists and scholars, The Handbook of Natural Resources, Second Edition, is an excellent reference for understanding the consequences of changing natural resources to the degradation of ecological integrity and the sustainability of life. Based on the content of the bestselling and CHOICE-awarded Encyclopedia of Natural Resources, this new edition demonstrates the major challenges that the society is facing for the sustainability of all well-being on the planet Earth. The experience, evidence, methods, and models used in studying natural resources are presented in six stand-alone volumes, arranged along the main systems of land, water, and air. It reviews state-of-the-art knowledge, highlights advances made in different areas, and provides guidance for the appropriate use of remote sensing and geospatial data with field-based measurements in the study of natural resources.

Volume 5, Coastal and Marine Environments, discusses marine and coastal ecosystems, their biodiversity, conservation, and integrated marine management plans. It provides fundamental information on coastal and estuarine systems and includes discussions on coastal erosion and shoreline change, natural disasters, evaporation and energy balance, fisheries and marine resource management, and more. New in this edition are discussions on sea level rise, renewable energy, coral reef restoration, fishery resource economics, and coastal remote sensing. This volume demonstrates the key processes, methods, and models used through many case studies from around the world.

Written in an easy-to-reference manner, The Handbook of Natural Resources, Second Edition, as individual volumes or as a complete set, is an essential reading for anyone looking for a deeper understanding of the science and management of natural resources. Public and private libraries, educational and research institutions, scientists, scholars, and resource managers will benefit enormously from this set. Individual volumes and chapters can also be used in a wide variety of both graduate and undergraduate courses in environmental science and natural science at different levels and disciplines, such as biology, geography, earth system science, and ecology.

I

Terrestrial Coastal Environment

1

Aquaculture

Carrie J. Byron

Gulf of Maine Research Institute

Introduction

Global Perspective

Species and Habitats

Integrated Multitrophic Aquaculture

Management

Marine Spatial Planning • Ecosystem Approach to Aquaculture • Carrying Capacity

References

Introduction

Aquaculture is the process of cultivating aquatic organisms in a controlled setting and may include some or all of the processes of breeding, rearing, and harvesting. Aquaculture can be done on land in tanks, freshwater habitats such as ponds, brackish water habitats such as estuaries, or marine habitats such as in the coastal zone and open ocean. Mariculture is often used to describe brackish or marine aquaculture. Sea ranching describes the process of rearing early life stages in controlled systems and releasing them back to the ocean often for the purpose of restocking a population.^[1] Tuna ranching is a relatively recent development whereby young wild fish are captured and reared in net pens to marketable sized^[2,3]

Global Perspective

Aquaculture is increasing on a global scale. However, the increase in aquaculture is not uniform across the globe.^[4] In 2010, global aquaculture production equaled 63.6 million tonnes.^[4] Asia comprised 89% (53,301,157 million tonnes) of the world aquaculture production by volume, with China as the leading nation comprising 61.4% (36,734,215 million tonnes) of global production. The remaining global aquaculture production came from the Americas (4.3%; 2,576,428 million tonnes), Europe (4.2%; 2,523,179 million tonnes), Africa (2.2%; 1,288,320 million tonnes), and Oceana (0.3%; 183,516 tonnes).^[4]

The National Aquaculture Act of 1980 states that it is “in the national interest, and it is the national policy, to encourage aquaculture development in the U.S.” Despite this national policy, the United States is not one of the top 10 leading nations in aquaculture production. Aquaculture production has grown most strongly in developing countries, particularly in Asia.^[4]

Freshwater is the dominant habitat type for aquaculture production comprising 62% of global production and 58.1% of global value of products produced.^[4] Of all the animal species produced in freshwater, 91% (33.9 million tonnes) of the production are freshwater finfishes such as carps, tilapia, and catfish.^[4] Marine aquaculture comprised 30.1% of global production and 29.2% of global value.^[4] Of all the animal species produced in marine water, three-quarters are molluscs (75.5%; 13.9 million tonnes) such as clams, cockles, oysters, and mussels.^[4] Brackish water habitats comprised only 7.9% of global aquaculture production and 12.8% of its value.^[4] Of all the animal species produced in brackish water, more than half are crustaceans (57.7%; 2.7 million tonnes) such as shrimp.^[4]

Most aquaculture species are produced for human consumption. Some ornamental fish, such as clownfish, are produced for aquarium trade.^[5,6] Some algae and small fin-fish species are produced for consumption by other farmed animals including shellfish, fish, chickens, pigs, and other mammals. Of the animal species being produced through aquaculture for human consumption, there has been a proportionally large increase in freshwater finfish and molluscs over the past four decades.^[4] More than half (56.6%; 33.7 million tonnes) of global aquaculture production is freshwater finfish and nearly one-quarter (23.6%; 14.2 million tonnes) is molluscs.^[4] Crustaceans (9.6%; 5.7 million tonnes), diadromous fish (6.0%; 3.6 million tonnes), marine fish (3.1%; 1.8 million tonnes), and other assorted animals (1.4%; 814,3000 tonnes) such as sea cucumbers and softshell turtles comprise the rest of the aquaculture production by species type.^[4]

Species and Habitats

Finfish are vertebrate fish species and include freshwater, diadromous, and marine fish. Diadromous fish such as salmon live part of their life in freshwater and another part in salt water. Most freshwater finfish are grown on land in tanks or raceways (long narrow troughs). U.S. freshwater aquaculture is dominated by channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) but is shadowed by the dramatic increase in the production of pangas catfish (Pangasius spp.) in Vietnam in recent years.^[4,7] Trout, tilapia, and some bass species are also grown in land-based facilities often using a recirculating aquaculture system designed to reduce and reuse water. Land-based aquaculture facilities require high amounts of electricity to maintain operations, and efficient systems that cause little pollution are generally required to maintain these facilities, which have a little impact on the environment.^[8] Recirculating aquaculture systems clean and reuse effluent water within the facility instead of discharging dirty water into the environment.

Although some marine species can also be raised on land, most are raised in the ocean in net pens or cages (Figure 1.1). Atlantic salmon represents many of the environmental and social debates surrounding the efficacy of finfish farming. Salmon is farmed around the world with the two leading producers of farmed Atlantic salmon being Norway and Chile.^[4] Criticisms for finfish aquaculture concern environmental and human health. Escaped farm salmon may breed with wild salmon, thereby polluting “wild” genetic stocks with genes ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• About The Handbook of Natural Resources
• Acknowledgments
• Aims and Scope
• Editor
• Contributors
• Section I Terrestrial Coastal Environment
• Section II Marine Environment
• Section III Coastal Change and Monitoring
• Index