English

｜

中文

Offshore aquaculture, also known as open ocean aquaculture, is an emerging approach to mariculture or marine farming where fish farms are moved some distance offshore. The farms are positioned in deeper and less sheltered waters, where ocean currents are stronger than they are inshore.

          One of the concerns with inshore aquaculture is that discarded nutrients and feces can settle below the farm on the seafloor and damage the benthic ecosystem According to its proponents, the wastes from aquaculture that has been moved offshore tend to be swept away from the site and diluted. Moving aquaculture offshore also provides more space where aquaculture production can expand to meet the increasing demands for fish. It avoids many of the conflicts that occur with other marine resource users in the more crowded inshore waters, though there can still be user conflicts offshore. Critics are concerned about issues such as the ongoing consequences of using antibiotics and other drugs and the possibilities of cultured fish escaping and spreading disease among wild fish.