Recirculating Aquaculture Is Possible without Major Energy Tradeoff: Life Cycle Assessment of Warmwater Fish Farming in Sweden Show others and affiliations
2020 (English) In: Environmental Science and Technology, ISSN 0013-936X, E-ISSN 1520-5851, Vol. 54, no 24, p. 16062-16070Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Seafood is seen as promising for more sustainable diets. The increasing production in land-based closed Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RASs) has overcome many local environmental challenges with traditional open net-pen systems such as eutrophication. The energy needed to maintain suitable water quality, with associated emissions, has however been seen as challenging from a global perspective. This study uses Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to investigate the environmental performance and improvement potentials of a commercial RAS farm of tilapia and Clarias in Sweden. The environmental impact categories and indicators considered were freshwater eutrophication, climate change, energy demand, land use, and dependency on animal-source feed inputs per kg of fillet. We found that feed production contributed most to all environmental impacts (between 67 and 98%) except for energy demand for tilapia, contradicting previous findings that farm-level energy use is a driver of environmental pressures. The main improvement potentials include improved by-product utilization and use of a larger proportion of plant-based feed ingredients. Together with further smaller improvement potential identified, this suggests that RASs may play a more important role in a future, environmentally sustainable food system.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages American Chemical Society , 2020. Vol. 54, no 24, p. 16062-16070
Keywords [en]
Aquaculture, Climate change, Energy management, Environmental management, Eutrophication, Land use, Life cycle, Sustainable development, Water quality, By-product utilization, Environmental challenges, Environmental performance, Environmental pressures, Global perspective, Increasing production, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Recirculating aquaculture system, Environmental impact
National Category
Natural Sciences
Identifiers URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-51477 DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.0c01100 Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85097843120 OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-51477 DiVA, id: diva2:1515394
Note Funding details: Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas; Funding details: Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas, 2013-1961-27044-74, 2016-00227; Funding details: Stiftelsen för Miljöstrategisk Forskning; Funding text 1: The authors wish to thank the farm Gårdsfisk for generously sharing their data. This work resulted from the SEAWIN project funded by The Swedish Research Council Formas (grant number 2016-00227) and NOMACULTURE project (2013-1961-27044-74) funded by Formas and MISTRA. P.J.G.H. undertook this work as part of the CGIAR Research Programs on Fish Agri-Food Systems (FISH) led by WorldFish and on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS). These programs are supported by contributors to the CGIAR Trust Fund.
2021-01-082021-01-082023-06-07 Bibliographically approved