Regulation of Aquaculture

As aquaculture expands, regulation to prevent environmental damage is an essential requirement for sustainability. Planners must ensure that aquaculture developments meet aesthetic, social and economic criteria, and that there is harmonisation between new developments and local infrastructure capacity or other resource use e.g. tourism. Planners and regulators have duties to ensure that developments do not adversely affect the environment. The objectives of regulation can be separated into three areas:

1. protection of legitimate users of the environment, such as tourists or fishermen, such that resources are fairly distributed
2. protection of the environment for its biological structure including protection of important/rare habitats and species
3. protection of ecosystem functions such as the recycling of nutrients and the maintenance of oxygen levels

 In ECASA we have mainly dealt with the third of these – Protection of Ecosystem Function.  For the regulator, the toolbox brings together a series of models, indicators and case studies that have application in predicting and detecting environmental changes caused by aquaculture.  We have concentrated on the main fin-fish and shellfish species cultured in Europe at present, although many of the tools could be adapted for other species or environments. These aspects are discussed further in Black and Cromey (in press).

Follow this link for further information on the current legislation relating to the regulation of European aquaculture.

You may also be interested in looking at the other introductory materials in this section

• Shell and fin fish farm managers 
• Informing on Consistent EIA
• Toolbox Overview
• The science behind ECASA - if you are interested in the methods used by ECASA to make and test these tools
• About the ecosystem approach as perceived and used by ECASA
• About the definitions of scales - read this to understand the difference between farm scale, water body scale, regional scale 

The following links provide a further list of links to Models, Indicators and Case Studies of relevance to farming several species:

• Models that have been tested for salmon, cod, sea bass, sea bream, oyster and mussel farms

• Indicators that have been tested for salmon, cod, sea bass, sea bream, oyster and mussel farms
• Case studies on salmon, cod, sea bass, sea bream, oyster and mussel farms
• Other useful documents relevant to salmon, cod, sea bass, sea bream, oyster and mussel farms

The following are links to study site reports by region:

• Atlantic/Baltic
• Mediterranean

References

Black, K.D. and Cromey, C. (in press). The scientific basis of marine fish farm regulation. Science Dillman

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