Aquaculture is the fastest-growing food-producing sector globally, often promoted as a solution for meeting the growing food demands of this century. However, climate change can have direct and indirect impacts on aquaculture that may lead to important environmental, social and economic consequences with the potential of reduced production.
Some examples include losses of production and infrastructure arising from extreme weather events, increased risk of diseases, parasites and harmful algal blooms. Others include climate-driven changes in temperature, ocean acidification, extent of hypoxia and sea level rise. The impacts of climate change increase the complexity and uncertainty of aquaculture systems and are expected to lead to changes in the availability and trade of products from aquaculture.
The impact of climate change will depend on how rapidly the changes occur, how large the changes are, as well as the adaptability of societies and ecosystems. Adaptive responses and strategies are needed to ensure both the socio-economic and environmental aspects of aquaculture, in addition to safeguarding that adaptations are consistent with the ecosystem approach to aquaculture.
In this session we are looking for presentations on environmental and socio-economic aspects at scales ranging from the organism to farming systems and management:
- What are the possible long and short-term impacts on the aquaculture sector? From a risk perspective, it is important to consider all possible outcomes (positive and negative), not just the most likely.
- Examples of industry and management approaches and mitigation strategies in aquaculture for adapting to climate change, including how to use aquaculture production itself as an adaptation and/or mitigation measure in their efforts. to address climate change (e.g. restorative aquaculture)
- What research gaps need to be addressed? A common message is that there are important gaps in current. knowledge and understanding of scientific, institutional and socio-economic aspects of the aquaculture sector and the likely impacts of climate change.
