Integrating Aquaculture Production with Offshore Energy: The Role of GIS Innovation and Marine Spatial Planning (MSP)

Globally, growing human activity in coastal and offshore waterways has led to increasingly complex disputes between many industries vying for ocean resources, including space, use, and conservation. Advocates of aquaculture consider mainly the biological and technical feasibility of potential offshore locations, as well as their economic consequences. Marine Spatial Planning has also been promoted as a way of attaining ecosystem-based management of water spaces. Multi-use and industry-specific planners are predominantly relying on spatially referenced datasets, GIS-related aids to analysis, and the Decision Support Systems to have alternatives analyzed and to balance cost and benefit implications.  The exploration of the possibility of co-locating wind farms and aquaculture facilities rewards that the shrinking of the cumulative human footprint in sea areas is a feasible path. It simultaneously creates the issue of economic synergies between the production of renewable energy and aquaculture, which, in turn, requires strict analysis and strategic planning. This form of integration will overcome the hurdles facing the two industries and will at the same time provide clean energy and sea food for the country in an environment-sustainable way.