A project looking to determine a more accurate way of predicting how salmon farms interact with their surrounding environment is underway in Scotland.
Led by a consortium of organizations – comprising the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS), Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation (SSPO), Sustainable Aquaculture Innovation Centre (SAIC), and the University of Dundee – the goals of the project are to help inform decisions on future farm locations and the development of existing farms, and to enhance the sector’s overall sustainability.
Building on work undertaken over the past two years, the project will explore how the NewDEPOMOD model, which is already used around the world to understand interactions between fish farms and the seabed beneath them, can better reflect the physical and ecological conditions in different parts of Scotland.
Conducting a series of tests at their laboratory facilities, researchers at the University of Dundee will mimic the hydrodynamic conditions and sediment-bed characteristics in different types of waters in Scotland – from sheltered sea lochs to more exposed coastal waters with rocky, sandy, or muddy seabeds. They will then model the settling, deposition, and resuspension of waste-matter from fish farms to see how they will react within these environments.
The addition of these trials will improve the quality of information and the accuracy of the predictions used to determine the best locations for salmon farms in Scottish waters.
“We want everyone involved to have maximum confidence in the models used to locate fish farms and predict their environmental impact, minimize impact on the seabed, and ensure the sector is as sustainable as possible,” University of Dundee Senior Lecturer in Environmental Fluid Mechanics Alan Cuthbertson said.
In addition, the project will provide the salmon producing sector with training and guidelines for working with the new models, as well as an enhanced software package and user interface for individuals using NewDEPOMOD.
The consortium will also organize a series of workshops to facilitate communication between the sector and regulators.
“We are very supportive of this project and the sector is investing heavily in it, to ensure the outcomes are of use to all concerned. Being able to accurately predict how we interact with our environment is key, not only for the development of new and existing farms, but to our sector’s wider sustainability objectives, as presented in our Sustainability Charter,” SSPO Head of Technical Iain Berrill said.
Photo courtesy of the Sustainable Aquaculture Innovation Centre
