1. How does a fish farm’s area of environmental impact relate to its size? Understanding this relationship is crucial if we are to ensure that fish farming in the UK can continue to grow in an environmentally sustainable manner. We want to know if it is better to have lots of small farms, or fewer larger farms.

This component of our research is based on data that we have collected during benthic surveys around existing fish farms (click here to see featured article). In addition to traditional survey techniques (sediment biology and chemistry), we also used Oceanlab’s SPI camera to help map the areas of impact.

2. How does the gradient of environmental impact relate to fish farm size? This question is also designed to further our understanding of how future fish farming activities can be implemented to ensure that environmental disturbances are minimalised.

Figure 2. A hypothetical schematic illustrating how farm size may influence the gradient of its environmetnal impact.

This question is also to be addressed with our field-collected farm impact data.

3. Do fish farm effluents influence biodiversity and ecosystem function? A range of medicinal compounds are associated with fish farming practices. A proportion of these treatments ultimately reach the surrounding seafloor. We are examining if the presence of these compounds influences the number of species that are present in marine sediments, and if so, how they change the way the sediment communities recycle nutrients.

Figure 3. Hypothetical schematics of how biodiversity may influence nutrient cycling.

To address this question we are using a ‘mesocosm’ approach. This entails incubating representative animals in natural sediment, and examining how their survival and nutrient cycling rates change in response to increasing concentrations of fish farm effluent