Advancement in the Zoning of Aquaculture activities

Bivalve aquaculture development in the Italian Region of Sardinia is currently limited by knowledge gaps on potential productivity of coastal areas. Furthermore, a once expanding trout production in the island's lakes has been seriously hampered by lack of knowledge-based regulatory framework which did not include robust evaluation of environmental impacts and ecological carrying capacity. This project focuses on the detailed research of the local ecological context (3 lakes and 3 coastal lagoons) with the view of developing carrying capacity and environmental impacts modelling tools able to deliver decision making support to the local government agencies. In order to improve on its ability to regulate the regional aquaculture industry without necessarily hampering it's sustainable development the Regional Government of Sardinia as agreed to fund this project. With our partners on the ground: the International Marine Centre (IMC) and the Institute for Anthropic impacts Studies of the Council for National Research (IAS-CNR), we will use the ecological data available from national and regional databases complemented by new data collected by the local branch of the IAS-CNR, to develop new modelling tools of production potential and carrying capacity for the identified study areas. Methods employed during this project build on our previous work in the Region (Improving the value of sustainable oyster production within the bivalve culture production system – Project Code 05524) at European level with the TAPAS project (Project 418359 - Tools For Assessment And Planning Of Aquaculture Sustainability- http://tapas-h2020.eu) and more globally with our previous project on "Cage aquaculture in the Lake Volta" (Ghana). The data collected during this project will be used in spatial, environmental and growth models (Dynamic Energy Budget) to predict likely production outputs, impact of farms on the studied environments and ecological carrying capacity of each site and will be incorporated into a spatial database in a Geographical Information System, allowing wide field analysis of aquaculture opportunities as well as environmental interactions.