Minimising climate impact on aquaculture: mitigation and adaptation solutions for future climate regimes

ExpectedOutcome:

Selected proposals are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Contribution to sustainable aquaculture systems (in marine and/or transitional, and/or fresh waters) for fair, safe, healthy, climate-resilient and environment-friendly food systems with low impact on aquatic ecosystems, supporting the European Green Deal and the farm to fork strategy, the “Strategic guidelines for a more sustainable and competitive EU aquaculture for the period 2021 to 2030^[1]”, and the “Action plan for the development of organic production”^[2];
• Implementation of innovations, such as dietary shifts and aspects of circularity, for a more sustainable and competitive European aquaculture enhancing aquaculture resilience to adverse consequences of climate change;
• Positioning of European aquaculture production as the global reference for sustainability and quality, increase its competitiveness, reduce EU dependence on imports of fisheries and aquaculture products and create more jobs, especially in rural and coastal regions;
• Contribution to aquaculture production with a reduced environmental footprint, advancing towards climate-neutrality;
• Contribution to technologically-advanced aquaculture production (indicatively through the use of techniques such as artificial intelligence, sensors, internet-of-things and robotics), fully embedded in natural, social, ethical and economic sustainability.

Scope:

Proposals are expected to enhance knowledge of the impacts of climate change on aquaculture production at environmental, social and economic levels. They should identify, forecast and assess the main effects of climate change on different aquaculture production systems and on their ecological carrying capacity.

They should consider impacts of climate change such as water availability (e.g., rise in evaporation, decrease in rainfall, extreme weather events like droughts or floods), water quality (e.g., acidification, eutrophication, pollution, contamination), temperature rise, sea level rise, spread of diseases (e.g. recrudescence of endemic and emerging diseases in traditional and recirculating aquaculture systems), reduced fish welfare, invasive species, and other climate related risks.

They should also investigate adaptation and mitigation solutions and opportunities such as technological, social, economic, and biological/ecological aspects, selection of suitable sites, culture methods (including the contribution of organic production and integrated multi-trophic aquaculture), species plasticity and adaptability to changing environments as well as breeding and selection techniques for a more sustainable, productive and resilient production.

Furthermore, they should address aspects of circularity in terms of more efficient use of resources and less negative impacts on marine environment, including reduction, valorisation, and reuse of waste. Indicative aspects could include Life Cycle Assessment approaches such as of feeding systems and valorisation of non-food biomass for feeds and fertilisers.

Proposals should build on the work of Horizon 2020 and EMFF projects, such as ClimeFish and CERES, and provide applicable approaches and tools to the aquaculture sector.

Selected proposals should collaborate with each other.

This topic should involve the effective contribution of SSH disciplines.

Proposals are encouraged to cooperate with actors such as the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC). The possible participation of the JRC in the project would consist in providing and analysing aquaculture data.

Specific Topic Conditions:

Activities are expected to achieve TRL 6-7 by the end of the project – see General Annex B.

[1]COM(2021)236 final

[2]COM(2021)141 final