Department of Food Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA.
Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA; Department of Aquaculture, National Taiwan Ocean University, Keelung City, Taiwan.
J Environ Manage. 2024 Feb 27;353:120208. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2024.120208. Epub 2024 Feb 1.
Aquaponics is an integrated food production system that intensively produces a diverse array of seafood and specialty crops in one closed-loop system, which is a potential solution to global challenges of food security. While current aquaponics systems are commonly operated with freshwater, marine aquaponics is an emerging opportunity to grow saltwater animals and plants. Although marine aquaponics can reduce the dependence on freshwater for food production, its environmental sustainability has not been systematically studied. This paper presents the first life cycle assessment (LCA) on a marine aquaponic production system growing shrimp and three halophytes. The system assessed covered from shrimp larvae nursery to grow-out. The effects of salinity, carbon/nitrogen (C/N) ratio and shrimp-to-plant stocking density ratio of aquaponics on its midpoint and endpoint environmental impacts were evaluated using a functional unit based on the economic value of the four products. Electricity use for aquaponic operation was the environmental hotspot, contributing ∼90 % to all the midpoint impacts. The system produced higher environmental impacts when operated at higher salinity, but lower C/N ratio and stocking density. Replacing fossil fuel with wind power for electricity generation can decrease the environmental impacts by 95-99 %. Variation in the shrimp price can change the impacts by up to 62 %. This study provides a useful tool to help marine aquaponic farmers improve their production from an environmental perspective, and can serve as groundwork for further assessing more marine aquaponic systems with different animal-plant combinations.
水培农业是一种综合的食品生产系统，它在一个闭环系统中密集地生产各种海鲜和特色作物，是解决全球粮食安全挑战的潜在方案。虽然目前的水培系统通常使用淡水运行，但海水水培是一种新兴的机会，可以种植咸水动物和植物。虽然海水水培可以减少对淡水的依赖，但它的环境可持续性尚未得到系统研究。本文首次对虾类和三种盐生植物的海水水培生产系统进行了生命周期评估 (LCA)。评估的系统涵盖了从虾苗养殖场到养殖的全过程。使用基于四种产品经济价值的功能单元，评估了水培系统的盐度、碳/氮 (C/N) 比和虾/植物放养密度比对其中点和终点环境影响的影响。水培操作的电力使用是环境热点，对所有中点影响的贡献约为 90%。当系统在较高盐度下运行时，会产生更高的环境影响，但较低的 C/N 比和放养密度。用风力发电替代化石燃料发电可以将环境影响降低 95-99%。虾价的变化最多可以使影响变化 62%。本研究为海水水培农民从环境角度提高生产提供了有用的工具，并为进一步评估具有不同动植物组合的更多海水水培系统奠定了基础。
