Proposed Local Ecological Impact Categories and Indicators for Life Cycle Assessment of Aquaculture

Abstract

Summary In this study we discuss impact categories and indicators to incorporate local ecological impacts into life cycle assessment (LCA) for aquaculture. We focus on the production stages of salmon farming—freshwater hatcheries used to produce smolts and marine grow‐out sites using open netpens. Specifically, we propose two impact categories: impacts of nutrient release and impacts on biodiversity. Proposed indicators for impacts of nutrient release are (1) the area altered by farm waste, (2) changes in nutrient concentration in the water column, (3) the percent of carrying capacity reached, (4) the percent of total anthropogenic nutrient release, and (5) release of wastes into freshwater. Proposed indicators for impacts on biodiversity are (1) the number of escaped salmon, (2) the number of reported disease outbreaks, (3) parasite abundance on farms, and (4) the percent reduction in wild salmon survival. For each proposed indicator, an example of how the indicator could be estimated is given and the strengths and weaknesses of that indicator are discussed. We propose that including local environmental impacts as well as global‐scale ones in LCA allows us to better identify potential trade‐offs, where actions that are beneficial at one scale are harmful at another, and synchronicities, where actions have desirable or undesirable effects at both spatial scales. We also discuss the potential applicability of meta‐analytic statistical techniques to LCA.

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

“…However, while these established impact categories are adapted to measure impacts of product and services, they are not necessarily well equipped for production technology comparison. The development of aquaculture specific impact categories is long wished for in the literature [40,50,54,58] and suggestions to include local ecological impacts have already been made years ago [81]. In this perspective, accounting for the impacts of aquaculture on biodiversity and water quality suggested by Ford et al [81] would significantly improve the environmental criteria by which we compare the different types of salmonid aquaculture production systems.…”

Life cycle assessment for rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) production systems: a case study for Iran

“…These aquaculture specific impacts (e.g. disease transfer, escape, parasite abundance on farms and the percent reduction in wild salmon survival) have been considered as major issues in classical assessments of environmental impacts of aquaculture (Samuel-Fitwi et al, 2013;Ford et al, 2012). However, until now these impacts have proven difficult to characterize and are generally ignored in LCA studies.…”

Edible Protein Energy Return on Investment Ratio (ep-EROI) for Spanish Seafood Products

“…These findings have recently fueled the debate around the environmental evaluation of fishing systems (Pelletier et al 2007;Ford et al 2012;Vázquez-Rowe et al 2012a). In fact, until recent years environmental indicators in fisheries were limited to evaluating the stock of a particular species or group of species, focusing on the direct impacts of biomass removal from fisheries (Udo de Haes et al 2002;Langlois 2012).…”