QUANTITATIVE STATISTICAL-ANALYSIS OF THE LITERATURE CONCERNING THE INTERACTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND AQUACULTURE - IDENTIFICATION OF GAPS AND LACKS

Aquaculture is a generic term chat covers a wide variety of culture te chniques and cultured species under different conditions and in differ ent geographical localities. It is typically a littoral and rural acti vity, and is rapidly expanding. An assessment of available literature concerning the interaction of aquaculture and the environment was cond ucted using the Aquatic Science and Fisheries Abstract (ASFA) database from 1978 to December 1991, incorporating a variety of definitive key word strategies together with a classical search of the available lit erature. Of the 2692 references collected, 70% were made up of publica tions from the ASFA database, while 30% consisted of 'grey' publicatio ns (i.e. Government reports, Working Group reports and publications no t included in the ASFA database). The literature gleaned from the ASFA database tends to refer to specific interactions of environment and a given culture species in a given location, while the grey literature tends to deal with the broader implications. Most oi the research focu ses on the most commonly cultured species in developed Western countri es. Consequently, information on extensive aquaculture is based on the interactions arising from cyprinid (12%), oyster (13%) and mussel cul ture (8%), while information on intensive culture is concerned mainly with trout culture in fresh water (20%) and salmonid culture in shallo w marine localities (6%). There is a general lack of information on th e waste output of commercial farming systems of marine finfish species new to the aquaculture industry and on their basic biological require ments in cultivation, as well as their environmental interactions. Oth er gaps in the literature relate to the discharge of chemicals into th e environment and the effects on the immediate environs and adjacent e cosystems and the accidental or intentional release of cultured specie s.