Designing for the Animal: Reimagining Offshore Fish Structures

Abstract The offshore marine environment has the potential to play a significant role in meeting the projected global demand for high quality protein from finfish aquaculture. However, moving aquaculture structures to open ocean locations poses technical and engineering challenges due to increased environmental loads from larger waves and current velocities. Several global initiatives are exploring this opportunity, but none is tackling the ambitious goal of developing soft-structure, mobile solutions. Our aim is to re-imagine the entire approach to finfish aquaculture by considering the key variables, temperature, water motion and husbandry, to understand the requirements for optimal fish wellbeing and growth. This knowledge will enable the design and future implementation of radically new Mobile Aquaculture Production Systems (MAPS). These systems will be flexible, mobile enclosures, readily customizable to support optimal conditions throughout the fish grow-out production cycle, addressing the design challenges for growing, transporting and harvesting fish offshore. The long-term goal is to create an optimal culture system for fish that supports fish wellbeing and growth while enabling increased production, reduced capital outlay and operating costs in a novel, scalable, low-impact, sustainable aquaculture system.