Sustaining Seafood Production in the Gulf of Maine
Keynote Talk Details:
Aquaculture is often characterized as the fastest growing food production system in the world. The vast majority of marine aquaculture production still occurs in nearshore estuarine habitats, although offshore and land based facilities continue to make strides. In the U.S., Maine leads the country in marine aquaculture production but only engages a small proportion of its 5,600 km of tidal shoreline in this activity. By combining multiple observing platforms, we are identifying new areas for shellfish and kelp aquaculture, characterizing important feedbacks that alter carrying capacity, and incorporating climate related factors into future aquaculture growing area projections.
Perhaps one of the more unique characteristics of this new observing-modeling platform is the incorporation of new nearshore remote sensing products (e.g., LandSat 8 and Sentinel 2A/B) capable of monitoring temperature, chlorophyll, turbidity (an indicator of suspended particulate matter in these systems) at 20-30 meter resolution and validated by Land-Ocean Biogeochemical Observatories (LOBOs). The increased resolution of these products allow them to be used to inform farm scale decisions for the first time. These elements are being linked to growth models that parse the coast into optimal areas for American oyster, blue mussel, and sea scallop growing areas with future plans to expand applicability to finfish and sea vegetables.
Finally, aquaculture production is the integrated result of a complex coastal social-economic-ecological system that is linked to fisheries, such as the American lobster fishery, tourism, and even energy production. Interdisciplinary engagement is the only path forward toward charting a sustainable future in one of the most productive coastlines in the world.
Keynote Speaker Introduction:
Damian Brady is the Ira C. Darling associate professor of marine science at the University of Maine. As a researcher on Maine’s last NSF EPSCoR grant, SEANET, Brady advanced sustainable ecological aquaculture research and has since leveraged that work to lead a first of its kind Aquaculture Experimental Station at the University of Maine’s Darling Marine Center.
Dr. Brady has studied coastal ecosystems all over the world for over 20 years. He is especially interested in how to link oceanographic and environmental information with decision making processes. Because we rely on the coast for tourism, fisheries, aquaculture, pollution processing, and energy (offshore wind and tidal power generation), Dr. Brady has focused on creating tools and models that can explore hypothetical uses of the coast to help communities better reflect their values in how they use their environment.
Brady was the lead of the Ecological Carrying Capacity of Maine Estuaries Research Theme of NSF’s Sustainable Ecological Aquaculture Network and now co-leads the Species on the Move Research Theme of the NSF Maine environmental DNA project. Dr. Brady also chairs the Regional Association for Research on the Gulf of Maine.