Speed Presentation 2024 Australian Marine Sciences Association Annual Meeting combined with NZMSS

Sustainability from the sea: Using a species selection tool for integrated offshore aquaculture systems in Australia and New Zealand (#60)

Sarah C Ugalde 1 2 , Katherine Ollerhead 1 , William L White 3 4 , Stewart Frusher 1 2 , Flavio Ribeiro 5 , Maren Wellenreuther 4 5 6 , Angela Williamson 4 , Chris G Carter 1 4
  1. University of Tasmania, Taroona, TAS, Australia
  2. Centre for Marine Socioecology, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
  3. Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand
  4. Blue Economy CRC, Newham, Tasmania, Australia
  5. New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research, Nelson, New Zealand
  6. University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

Integrated offshore (open water) aquaculture seeks to lessens the footprint and flow-on effects of large-scale offshore operations by using multiple species to increase productivity, use resources efficiently, and increase farm resilience. Here we present a rigorous species selection approach to assess the suitability of 100 tentative candidate species for integrated offshore aquaculture systems in Australia and New Zealand. Our selection approach combines information across three criteria: performance, viability, and innovation. The weighing of these criteria can be adjusted depending on what is considered important for species selection, making our approach versatile to support decision-making. Our species selection process was applied to cover different marine bioregions across Australia and New Zealand and highlighted multiple opportunities of varying levels of commercial feasibility and viability for integrated offshore aquaculture systems. Taken together, our study highlights the value of applying a structured yet flexible approach for species selection and showcases how this can be applied to support the move to offshore Integrated aquaculture production systems.