Life cycle assessments of aquaculture systems: a critical review of reported findings with recommendations for policy and system development

Abstract

The aquaculture sector is anticipated to be a keystone in food production systems in the coming decades. However, it is associated with potentially important environmental damages caused by its contribution to eutrophication or climate change, for example. To comprehensively quantify those impacts, life cycle assessment (LCA) studies have been conducted on several seafood farming systems for the past 15 years. But, what major findings and common trends can we draw from this pool of studies? What can we learn to provide recommendations to decision and policymakers in the aquaculture sector? To address these questions, we performed a critical review of 65 LCA studies of aquaculture systems from the open literature. We conducted quantitative analyses to explore which impacts can be identified as dominating and to compare different types of aquaculture systems. Our results evidenced that the feed production is a key driver for climate change, acidification, cumulative energy use and net primary production use, while the farming process is a key driver for eutrophication. We also found that different aquaculture systems and technology components may exert considerably different environmental impacts. Based on identified patterns and comparisons, we therefore provided specific recommendations to aquaculture stakeholders for future policy and system development. Overall, the analysis of existing studies demonstrates that important insights can be gained by applying LCA to aquaculture systems, and, to move towards an environmentally sustainable aquaculture sector, we recommend its systematic use in the design of new aquaculture systems or policies, and/or in the evaluation and optimization of existing ones.

Development and current state of seawater shrimp farming, with an emphasis on integrated multi‐trophic pond aquaculture farms, in China – a review

“…Aquaculture has occasionally been thought to be associated with multiple potential environmental impacts such as eutrophication of aquatic ecosystems, ecotoxicity in local ecosystems, climate change and coastal acidification (Clements & Chopin 2017; Bohnes et al . 2018). A recent LCA study showed that culture type has little influence on the environmental impacts except for aquatic eutrophication, and IMTA may have the potential to decrease environmental impacts if the different species are wisely selected and combines (Bohnes et al .…”

“…A recent LCA study showed that culture type has little influence on the environmental impacts except for aquatic eutrophication, and IMTA may have the potential to decrease environmental impacts if the different species are wisely selected and combines (Bohnes et al . 2018). Another recent study has concluded that when not accounting for uncertainties (deterministic LCA results), IMTA was the best performing option for all impacts considered in their LCA comparison with monocultures (Beltran et al .…”

Comparing Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Salmonid Aquaculture Production Systems: Status and Perspectives

“…Following the accumulation of aquaculture LCA studies, several reviews recently analyzed this section of the literature, focusing on the application of the LCA methodology [37][38][39] and comparing production systems [40][41][42][43]. In the latter ones, attempts to compare results focused primarily on the comparison of the system's intensities (intensive, semi-intensive, and extensive) and culture types (polyculture vs. monoculture).…”

Life Cycle Assessment of Seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax) Produced in Offshore Fish Farms: Variability and Multiple Regression Analysis

“…In fish cage production, the amount of feed provided to produce a unit of biomass (FCR) varies between species and among the different aquaculture systems used [8,14]. Even within one species and system, it may vary from fish farm to fish farm, which is why, when a sensitivity analysis is carried out [1], it is usually applied in relation to this system component, with one or two alternative scenarios proposed [8,11,15].…”