Investigating Potential Ecological Benefits From Mariculture

Mariculture has been gradually regarded as an important solution to the global food production crisis. Increasing scientific evidence reveals that mariculture can provide a large number of ecologic benefits, in accordance with several United Nations sustainable development goals. However, previous studies mostly focused on the negative impacts of mariculture, which may impede its increased production. Here, based on Emergy Accounting (EMA), we propose a comprehensive “Multiple Inputs-Ecosystem Service Multifunctionality-Multiple Environmental Impacts” (MI-ESM-MEI) evaluation framework, trying to describe mariculture's overall environmental performances beyond just limiting to the production of seafoods. As the world's largest mariculture producer, China is taken as an example for evaluation. Our results show that both cultured species and cultivation patterns determine the environmental performance of mariculture: seaweed-raft, shellfish-raft, shellfish-hanging cage, shellfish-bottom sowing and others-bottom sowing mariculture could be more influential in environmental support. By identifying priority areas for offshore mariculture development, ecological benefits can be significantly improved using about 27% of China's territorial sea area. At present, mariculture in Liaoning, Shandong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang performs better than that in other regions. Under the condition of recognizing nonnegligible ecological benefits of mariculture, additional improvements for more sustainable development are urgently needed. In addition, mariculture activities especially seaweed mariculture can help solve water contamination problem and alleviate the effects of eutrophication on coastal ecosystems. For most China coastal regions, if integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) mode can be promoted, the ecological burden of mariculture can be reduced and even converted into ecological benefit.