Use of mathematical models and emergy synthesis for the identification and valuation of ecosystem services and externalities in aquaculture production

Abstract

The aquaculture exponential growth has attracted the attention of researchers, civil society and non-governmental organizations concerned with the environmental, economic and social impacts related to the activity. In this way, it is essential to know how sustainable the systems really are for efficient activity management. Thus, the only way to do this is through sustainability assessments like emergy synthesis. However, sustainability assessment studies using emergy synthesis have not accounted for the ecosystem services and externalities that aquaculture production systems promote. In addition, estimating the magnitude of these factors and including them in the cost of production has been a challenge for environmental economists and scientists involved with the sustainability of aquaculture. In this context, the main objective of this project is to include ecosystem services and externalities in aquaculture sustainability assessments, as a way to promote the sustainable management of long-term activity. For this, productive, operational, economic and social data for this project were obtained from the main tilapia production systems in Brazil. From the raw data analysis, possible ecosystem services and externalities promoted by the systems will be identified, valued by mathematical modeling, and after this the results will be converted to an emergy value, so that they can be incorporated in the emergy synthesis and have their impact on the sustainability of the systems evaluated. Therefore, to assist in the conduct of this project, all methodologies and results will be analyzed and discussed under the assistance of researchers from Wageningen University and Research, and the advisor from Brazil. (AU)