Emergy analysis for the environmental sustainability of an inshore fish farming system

Emergy evaluation of organic and conventional marine shrimp farms in Guaraíra Lagoon, Brazil

“…Similar to what was observed in this study which showed lower ELR for the organic shrimp system, Bastianoni (2002) showed that the ELR values calculated for S. aurata reared in an semi-natural extensive manner are lower (ELR ¼ 0.34) than the one calculated for S. aurata reared under intensive system (ELR ¼ 5.00) calculated by Vassallo et al (2007).…”

“…In this sense, the ELR values showed by Vassallo et al (2007) for inshore fish farming system of Sparus aurata (ELR ¼ 5.00) are lower than the values calculated in this study for the conventional or organic shrimp farms. These differences could be related to the role of natural systems for each system, as well the farm design for rearing the different species (P. vanammei and S. aurata).…”

EMERGY analysis for sustainability evaluation of the Baiyangdian wetland ecosystem in China

“…As a result, EMERGY analysis is a type of embodied energy analysis that can provide common units (EMERGY) for comparison of environmental and economic goods by summing the energy of one type required directly or indirectly for production of goods [12]. Different energy forms contribute, in turn, to the ecological processes and to economic activities [14,15]. In EMERGY analysis, the quality of each form of energy is taken into account by multiplying each quantity of energy by its solar 'transformity' which is defined as solar EMERGY per unit energy (sej$J -1 ) [12].…”

“…EMERGY analysis of wetland ecosystems seems to be a promising approach to investigate and assess the environmental problems and their relationship to sustainability. EMERGY analysis has been used to quantitatively explore public policy options for the Mississippi delta [21], Italy [22], and Taiwan [23,24], and has been applied to many other smaller scale systems such as agricultural [25], farming [15], and river [26] systems. This technique has also been used to evaluate proposals of dam construction on the Mekong River [27], as well as the Mai Po mangrove marshes [28], and the sustainability of economic and technological systems [29].…”

Safety, Security and Quality: Lessons from GMO Risk Assessments

“…In this context, the narrative of power rests on further enhancing the alleged remarkable performances of the aquaculture "blue revolution" (Vassallo et al, 2007) and on tackling the issue of food security by effectively responding to the globally growing need for healthy and cheap animal proteins. Again, indefinite (bio)safety risks are explicitly weighted up against definite food security benefits.…”