CAREER: Environmental Impacts of Closed Loop Food Production: Aquaponics as a Case Study

需要新的粮食生产技术来养活日益增长的全球人口，预计这些人口将主要居住在城市地区。一种选择是水培法生产的蛋白质和蔬菜。水培食品生产（海产品和植物在一个闭环系统中种植）是食品生产的一项创新，特别是在城市地区种植食品方面。这个CAREER项目的主要目标是对鱼菜共生作为一种食品生产技术的可持续性产生新的见解，同时吸引学生、鱼菜共生生产者和公众围绕食品可持续性问题展开讨论。本项目将量化粮食生产转向鱼菜共生对相关粮食、能源和水系统的生命周期可持续性影响。这些见解对于为不断增长的城市人口评估可持续粮食生产技术至关重要。该项目将：(1)产生综合数据，并对不同植物和海产品的商业规模的鱼菜共生生产的环境和经济影响产生新的见解；(2)创建新的生命周期评估影响类别，特别适合水产食品生产系统；(3)优化鱼菜共生设施的布局；4)建立一个新的综合模型，供研究人员和水培设施使用，以确定其生产对环境和经济的影响。这项工作涉及跨多个尺度、物种、功能单位、影响类别和水共生食物生产的边界分析，以整体确定这种新型食物生产系统的相对可持续性影响。这种方法的目标是产生对这些系统进行生命周期分析和技术经济评估的基本新方法，这对于减少未来大规模系统的影响，避免潜在的意外后果或负担转移至关重要，因为该技术被优化并用于以更少的资源养活更多的人。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

New food production technologies are needed to feed the increasing global population, which is predominantly expected to inhabit urban areas. One option is aquaponically produced protein and vegetables. Aquaponic food production (where seafood and plants are grown in a closed loop system) is an innovation in food production, particularly with respect to growing food in urban areas. The main goal of this CAREER project is to generate new insights on the sustainability of aquaponics as a food production technology, while engaging students, aquaponic producers, and the general public around the issue of food sustainability. This project will quantify the life-cycle sustainability impacts of shifting food production to aquaponics with respect to the relevant food, energy, and water systems. These insights are critical to evaluating sustainable food production technologies for a growing urban world population.This project will 1) generate comprehensive data and new insight of the environmental and economic impact of aquaponics production at commercial scale across different plant and seafood species, 2) create new life cycle assessment impact categories specifically suited to aquatic food production systems, 3) optimize placement of aquaponic facilities, and 4) develop a new integrated model to be used by researchers and aquaponic facilities for determining their environmental and economic impacts of production. This work involves analysis across multiple scales, species, functional units, impact categories, and boundaries of aquaponic food production, in order to holistically determine the relative sustainability impacts of this novel food production system. This approach is targeted to result in fundamental new ways of conducting life cycle analysis and techno-economic assessment for these systems, which is critical for reducing the impact of future large-scale systems and avoiding potential unintended consequences or burden shifting as the technology is optimized and employed to feed a greater number of people with fewer resources.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.