Aquaculture is a booming business all over the world, impacting the water environment and being heavily dependent on ambient aquatic conditions. DHI is greatly involved in this development and aims at improving the environmental efficiency in aquaculture activities.
DHI has many years of experience in aquaculture and our consultancy can be of great use before initiating as well as in an already existing aquaculture production.
The main services are:
- Initiation or Expansion of Production
- Impact Assessment
- Operational Forecasting
- Modelling of Production
- Clean Technology
Initiation or Expansion of Production
DHI can provide service in all aspects prior to initiating a production such as preparation of applications, selection of production site, modelling and design of production etc. (see below) resulting in an environmental efficient aquaculture production. Furthermore DHI assists in approval of production increase and relocation of production facilities.
Impact Assessment
Aquaculture is a highly environmental efficient method for food production, but nevertheless, some impacts can be seen in the locations around fish farms. DHI has developed cost efficient tools for assessing these impacts. The tools include modelling the area of impact, mapping of the benthic community and biomonitoring in the water phase. These methods involve theoretically-, actual concentration and the impact of the production at the specific site and surrounding water environment.
Operational Forecasting
The production depends on the ambient water which exposes the facilities to high risk. DHI’s operationally forecast includes highly relevant parameters for the daily operation of the facility such as, water levels, water flows, temperature, salinity, oxygen and turbidity. Furthermore the forecasts on conditions as extreme wave & current regimes, toxic algal blooms, toxic chemical spills, low oxygen, rapid fluctuations of salinity & temperature, ice conditions etc. are highly valuable information for the fish farmer.
Modelling of Production
Powerful, new model tools now exist for fish farm process control: e.g. bulk process modelling of the fish farm processes, simulating advection dispersion processes in fish tanks/ponds, and as a spin-off from the ECCO project, simulations of the approximate behaviour of fish individuals. Moreover 3D eutrophication modelling can be used as prediction of the future water quality of the aquaculture surroundings.
Clean Technology
DHI consults on feed regime optimisation and design of biological and ecological treatment methods for the waste from flow through fish farms, and furthermore supplies the knowledge for designing zero-discharge fish farms. This clean technology knowledge has been obtained through experience with own demonstration scale facilities, among other the first pilot scale experimental eel farm in Europe.
Recent research at DHI involves macro algae production near open water marine fish farms systems for bioremediation of discharge nutrients.