Modern Trends in Aquaculture and Environmental Concerns: A Review

Abstract

Aquaculture is the fastest growing significant food production business in the world and provides over half of all fish eaten by humans. This expansion has been accompanied by substantial technical diversity, including recirculating aquaculture systems, offshore and open-ocean cage culture, integrated multi-trophic aquaculture, aquaponics, precision monitoring technologies and advancements in selective breeding and genomics. Aquaculture has expanded and intensified rapidly, and this has led to persistent environmental issues, including nutrient loading and eutrophication, conversion of coastal habitat, transmission of disease and use of antimicrobials, genetic interactions between escaped and wild stocks, pressure on forage fish stocks for fishmeal and fish oil, greenhouse gas emissions and competition for coastal land and freshwater resources. This study summarises existing knowledge on recent advances in aquaculture technology and management and environmental issues related with industry development. It looks at species- and region-specific case studies within salmon, prawns, carp, tilapia and bivalve aquaculture, surveys the governance and certification landscape that is shaping sustainability outcomes, and discusses emerging solutions including circular-economy approaches, alternative feed ingredients and ecosystem-based management. The review finds that while technological and management innovation has significantly reduced the environmental intensity of aquaculture production in some sub-sectors, continued growth in global demand for aquatic food will require further advances in feed sourcing, spatial planning, disease management and governance to reconcile aquaculture expansion with environmental sustainability.