Evaluating the Environmental Conditions Required for the Development of Offshore Aquaculture

水产养殖是水生生物的养殖，通常用于人类消费的目的。在世界范围内，鱼类和贝类的消费量正在扩大。全球野生鱼类资源正在减少，水产养殖的重要性正在迅速增长。水产品生产将继续支持人类对海产品日益增长的需求，以满足世界不同地区的大众和优质市场。水产品是英国日益重要的产业，出口价值超过5亿英镑。大部分英国水产养殖发生在苏格兰西海岸，主要养殖物种是大西洋鲑鱼（萨尔莫salar），占苏格兰海洋鱼类水产养殖的98%。该行业的出口额超过5亿英镑，雇用了8,000多人，大多数在其他工作机会稀缺的偏远地区。目前，大多数水产养殖生产发生在峡湾海洛克斯，为农场提供相对庇护的条件。工业界和政府都希望扩大苏格兰的水产养殖生产，但增加洛赫环境容量的机会有限。进一步扩展的障碍包括规划问题，将对鱼类健康产生负面影响的寄生海虱从一个地点转移到另一个地点，环境监管机构SEPA为尽量减少化学和颗粒物影响而实施的生物量限制，以及鱼类杀死有害藻华的影响，这些藻华在限制交换的环境中特别严重，如峡湾。养鱼业还面临着与环保人士的持续斗争，环保人士担心洛克斯和峡湾的集约化养殖会破坏野生种群和生态系统。在海洋洛克斯以外的“近海”环境中发展水产养殖业为该行业的可持续发展提供了一条潜在的途径。这些地点仍在沿海海洋环境中，但在更开阔和暴露的水域。更分散的开放环境可能会最大限度地减少上述问题，并有可能形成更大的农场，减少相互连接和环境影响。然而，这些更暴露的环境将带来自己的风险，例如潜在的风暴破坏。因此，为了继续发展近海水产养殖，需要对其潜在的利益有更好的科学认识。为实现这一目标，本项目将结合在现有和拟议的养鱼场位置进行对比暴露的实验观察，沿着以前无法获得的行业数据，以验证现有和新的物理和生物数学模型。然后，这些模型将用于评估减少海虱感染的潜力、有害藻华风险、设备故障风险以及在更有活力的环境中操作对养殖鱼类健康的影响。

Aquaculture is the cultivation of aquatic organisms, usually for the purposes of human consumption. Worldwide, fish and shellfish consumption is expanding. Globally wild fish stocks are in decline and aquaculture is rapidly growing in importance. Aquaculture production will continue to support the increasing human demand for seafood to feed both mass and quality markets in different regions of the world.Aquaculture is an increasingly important industry for the UK with exports worth in excess of £500 million. Most UK aquaculture occurs on the Scottish West coast with the dominant cultivated species being Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) which accounts for 98% of Scottish marine finfish aquaculture. The industry has an export value in excess of £500 million and employs more than 8,000 people mostly in remote locations where other job opportunities are scarce. Currently most aquaculture production occurs in fjordic sea lochs that provides relatively sheltered conditions for the farms. Industry and government have a desire to expand aquaculture production in Scotland but the opportunity to increase capacity within the sea loch environment in limited. Barriers to further expansion include planning issues, the transfer of parasitic sea lice that negatively impact fish health from one site to another, biomass limits imposed by the environmental regulator SEPA to minimise chemical and particulate impact, and the impact of fish killing harmful algal blooms that can be particularly acute in restricted exchange environments such as fjords. The fish farming industry also faces an ongoing battle with environmental campaigners who fear that intensive farming in lochs and fjords is damaging to wild stocks and ecosystems.The development of aquaculture in "offshore" environments outside of sea lochs offers a potential route for the sustainable expansion of the industry. Such locations are still within the coastal marine environment but in more open and exposed water. More dispersive open environments potentially minimise the problems outlined above with the potential for larger farms with reduced inter connectivity and environmental impact. However, these more exposed environments will carry their own risks, for example in terms of potential storm damage. To proceed with the development of offshore aquaculture a better scientific understanding of its potential benefits is therefore required. To achieve this, this project will use a combination of experimental observation at existing and proposed fish farm locations of contrasting exposure, along with previously unavailable industry data to validate existing and new physical and biological mathematical models. These models will then be used to evaluate the potential to reduce sea lice infections, the harmful algal bloom risk, the risk of equiment failure and the impact on farmed fish health of operation in more energetic environments.