Integration of Fed and Extractive Aquaculture

Integration of the fed and extractive components in an approach to aquaculture that seeks balance to protection of the environment and increasing total production. Our human tendency is focus only on high value and high production aquaculture. When an innovative aquaculture succeeds everyone adopts that system and concentrates aquaculture in areas were it was successfully. Aquaculturalists then strive to increase production by intensifying the system. This usually evolves into high-density monoculture systems. Such an approach to aquaculture leads to deterioration of environmental quality. Disease outbreaks made more virulent by the high density of organisms and by stressful environmental conditions. In pond aquaculture, the aquaculturist monitors and is responsible for balancing production with environmenal conditions. When aquaculture moves to the public waters, such as Jiaozhou Bay or Xincun Bay, the aquaculturist does not control the situation and the primary responsibility of maintaining a balance between the environment quality and aquaculture production usually shifts toa government resource management agency. In bays aquaculture is rarely the only user of the resources, and management agencies are faced with competing demands. Integrating the resource uses is not an easy task. Managers must use an approach of integrated coastal management (ICM) and must have the scientific tools to understand the impacts of various resource uses. The 3-dimensional models offer such a tool for integrating the impacts of human activity and natural environmental processes on an embayment.