The Role of Offshore Aquaculture in Ecosystem-Based Approaches to Coastal Management

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Sea Grant College Program has been funding marine aquaculture projects since the inception of the program in 1968. Early funding emphasis was on disciplinary studies such as nutrition, pathology, genetics, systems engineering, and life history studies of promising candidate species for aquaculture.

In the early 1990s, additional focus was placed on developing production systems that had the best potential for application in the environmentally conscious United States. These aquaculture technologies included recirculation system technologies, offshore aquaculture, and marine fisheries enhancement. Sea Grant funded several symposia on these subjects and proposed increases in funding through the NOAA budget process and this helped to further focus the research efforts for the NOAA based program.