Valuation of Ecosystem Services to promote sustainable aquaculture practices

Conceptual frameworks to assess and valuate Ecosystem Services (ES) are rapidly becoming important tools for ecosystem-based management, as they support transdisciplinary approaches to ecological economics and expand current asset boundaries to include natural and social capital. An important area where such ES assessment frameworks could become relevant management tools is aquaculture. Aquaculture activities are an interconnected part of the ecosystem in which they exist and, under certain circumstances, can support many of the same fundamental ES provided by nature. But, in most cases, aquaculture typically increases provisioning services at the expense of the other services (regulation & maintenance and cultural services). To understand the capacity of ES valuation methods to expose existing ES trade-offs in areas under aquaculture development, this study provides a literature review of publications that assessed and valuated ES delivered and/or impacted by aquaculture. In general, it seems that certain types of aquaculture do negatively impact overall ES delivery (e.g. intensive mangrove shrimp farming in Asia), yet certain modes of production (e.g. integrated multi-trophic aquaculture) and cultured species (e.g. algae and certain bivalves) can have a positive impact on ES, not only improving provisioning services but also regulation and maintenance services and, potentially, cultural services. ES valuation methods provide important data that facilitate discussion among stakeholders and policymakers and should be included in marine and coastal management planning processes to foster a more sustainable aquaculture.