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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday August 16 2017, @11:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the somethings-fishy dept.

Off-shore aquaculture using existing technologies could provide the entire world's seafood needs using a very small percentage of the global ocean area, although economic, environmental, and social constraints still exist:

Mapping the global potential for marine aquaculture (open, DOI: 10.1038/s41559-017-0257-9) (DX)

Here, we map the biological production potential for marine aquaculture across the globe using an innovative approach that draws from physiology, allometry and growth theory. Even after applying substantial constraints based on existing ocean uses and limitations, we find vast areas in nearly every coastal country that are suitable for aquaculture. The development potential far exceeds the space required to meet foreseeable seafood demand; indeed, the current total landings of all wild-capture fisheries could be produced using less than 0.015% of the global ocean area. This analysis demonstrates that suitable space is unlikely to limit marine aquaculture development and highlights the role that other factors, such as economics and governance, play in shaping growth trajectories. We suggest that the vast amount of space suitable for marine aquaculture presents an opportunity for countries to develop aquaculture in a way that aligns with their economic, environmental and social objectives.

[...] We found that over 11,400,000 km2 are potentially suitable for fish and over 1,500,000 km2 could be developed for bivalves. Both fish and bivalve aquaculture showed expansive potential across the globe, including both tropical and temperate countries (Figs. 1 and 2 and Supplementary Table 3). However, as would be predicted by metabolic theory, many of the areas with the highest GPI were located in warm, tropical regions. The total potential production is considerable: if all areas designated as suitable in this analysis were developed (assuming no further economic, environmental or social constraints), we estimate that approximately 15 billion tonnes of finfish could be grown every year—over 100 times the current global seafood consumption.

Found at NextBigFuture.


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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:45AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:45AM (#555065) Journal

    I'm afraid the (venture) capital world isn't a good analogy for aquaculture.
    For the simple reason that nobody in his own mind will take the cost of growing fish spawn** to have only 1%-ers for the harvest and 99% of the rest improper for consumption and incurring costs to dispose of them.

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    ** quite an expensive part of the cycle due to the required cleanness and controlled temperature and oxygen water levels and feed and what not.

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    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
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