Salmonid freshwater cage farming in a changing world

This project brings together a unique and significant freshwater aquaculture partnership to assess and improve freshwater management tools to optimise environmental management and disease control.

Current regulation and research do not fully consider freshwater ecological complexity. Interactions between catchments and different areas of freshwater lochs can affect all aspects of cage culture, from health and welfare to carrying capacity, which should be considered when developing regulatory and disease management tools.

The project will provide industry, regulators and certifiers with a knowledge base, monitoring approaches, and modelling tools needed to improve freshwater salmonid production. This will have benefits for multiple fish species (salmon and trout). Results will be accessible to the whole industry and have relevance for all companies that use freshwater cages in aquaculture production. The outcomes of the project could lead to unlocking new freshwater lake systems for aquaculture production.

Specifically, this project aims to achieve the following outcomes for each of four case study sites in Scotland:

1. Collate and analyse a baseline of long-term environmental change for the basis and parameterisation of models.
2. Develop catchment management models using a Geographic Information System (GIS), allowing for catchment interactions and inputs and future scenario planning.
3. Develop in-loch box-models to show interactions between different areas or compartments of the loch for enhanced management of aquaculture capacity and disease control.
4. Develop risk maps for individual lochs, showing which areas for siting of fish cages has the least risk of health and welfare and nutrient capacity issues.
5. Establish a new protocol to highlight improved environmental sampling requirements and data needs for water and land use to both monitor environmental quality throughout the system and provide input for environmental models for adaptive management.