Combined Fish and Lettuce Cultivation: An Aquaponics Life Cycle Assessment

Demands for efficient and resilient food production will increase due to population growth, climate change and other factors. This study compares the additive life cycles of traditional, large-scale lettuce and tilapia production with combined aquaponic agriculture to evaluate these methods based on their material efficiency and their associated environmental impacts. Analysis of the midpoint and endpoint characterizations show significantly reduced impacts on eutrophication, water usage, and geographic footprint of aquaponics, which leverages the symbiotic ecosystem productivity absent in current conventional agriculture. The analysis also indicates that the greatest potential for sustainable improvement of aquaponics technology and adoption is in its efficiency and material inputs, or fish feed. This argues coupling aquaponics with other material production-recycling networks may yield symbioses that can further increase long term potential for aquaponics as an important and resilient food production system.