Life Cycle Assessment of Indoor Recirculating Shrimp Aquaculture System

LCA;Shrimp Aquaculture;RAS;Natural Resources and Environment

Sun, WentingDiana, James ;

University of Michigan

关键词: LCA;    Shrimp Aquaculture;    RAS;    Natural Resources and Environment;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/63582/wenting%20sun%20thesis.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

This study analyzed the sustainability and environmental impact of indoor recirculatingaquaculture systems (RAS) used for raising shrimp in the U.S. A life cycle analysis (LCA) wasperformed to evaluate the environmental and energy performance of the system. In the LCAstudy, the functional unit was 1800 kg fresh shrimp, produced by a commercial-scalerecirculating shrimp aquaculture system in the U.S. The life cycle model included the hatchery,recirculating farm, product processing & storage, and transportation stages. The impactassessment method used was Eco-Indicator 95 and the environmental impact categoriesincluded global warming potential (GWP), ozone depletion potential (ODP), acidificationpotential (AP), eutrophication potential (EP), heavy metals (HM), carcinogens, pesticides(PC), summer smog (SS), winter smog (WS) and solid waste (SW). According to the LCAresults, shrimp farming accounted for 95% of the life cycle energy use and caused 82-99.6%of the environmental impacts in the life cycle system.A scenario analysis examining transportation, marketing, farm location, and biosolidshandling was also conducted. Results were sensitive to farm location and marketing scalewhile transportation and biosolids handling were much less significant. Reducing the scale ofthe market reduced environmental impacts due to energy savings in product distribution andstorage. Impacts of the local-scale scenario were just 42-87% of those of the national-scalescenario. Farm location was also significant since the energy use and environmental impactsin mainland coastal farms were 30% and 9-37% of those in the inland farms, respectively.With the same culture technique and product distribution, coastal farms were preferable toinland farms in terms of energy savings and pollution reduction. Moreover, compared toculturing shrimp locally in Michigan, buying shrimp from the Southern coast reduced lifecycle energy by 70% and reduced pollutant emissions by 86-643% for Michigan consumers.In addition, for American consumers, producing shrimp in this country was recommended,over importing shrimp from Asia. Shrimp production and distribution in the US led to a15-82% reduction in pollutant emissions.In comparing culture technique, there was a trade-off amongst energy consumption, water use,and environmental impacts with RAS and conventional flow-through farms. The RAS used70% less water than the conventional system, while the electricity usage in RAS was 1.4times that of the conventional flow-through system. The RAS produced lower GWP, EP, andODP impacts while the conventional farm showed better performance in terms of AP impacts.