Monitoring aquaculture activities through high-resolution satellite images

The ocean is tightly connected to our well-being, providing a wealth of resources fundamental to human sustenance and global food security, as also affirmed in the sixth principle of Ocean Literacy. Aquaculture offers precious opportunities for us to reduce hunger and improve nutrition while also generating economic growth and tackling poverty. The global relevance of aquaculture was especially highlighted in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly in SDG 2 - Zero Hunger and SDG 14 - Life Below Water.

More than 500 aquatic species are currently farmed all over the world, representing a wide range of biodiversity, and aquaculture is practiced by local coastal communities as well as large companies. Based on the data from the past three decades, it is likely that the future growth of the fisheries sector will mainly come from aquaculture.

Comprehending and collecting quality data in this sector, enabling researchers and professionals to perform research across disciplines and countries, is crucial to enable stakeholders in policy making and the blue economy to take evidence-based decisions on the sustainable management of such a precious resource. 

The Blue-Cloud demonstrator Aquaculture Monitor is delivering a tool to produce national aquaculture sector overviews, whereby a country can make use of OGC-compliant data services to monitor its aquaculture sector, built on interoperable services where teams can compute and publish reproducible experiments.

This demonstrator is jointly developed by the Information and knowledge management Team (NFISI) of the Fisheries Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the French provider of environmental monitoring solutions Collecte Localisation Satellites (CLS).

A specific Virtual Lab was developed in the Blue-Cloud Virtual Research Environment powered by D4Science, and presented with a public webinar in September 2020 describing its scope, key features and the potential benefits for the aquaculture sector in Europe and beyond.

Test the Virtual Lab