ECASA WP 2 Friday, 17 December 2004

Annotated sheet for indicators[1]

related to the impact of aquaculture on the environment[i]

1-  Name of indicator, authors

Total Organic Carbon (TOC), Total Sulphur (TS) Sulphide on wet sediment
Porrello ICRAM

2-  Computation : Formulae, or model output.

Whenever possible, please use a range of 0-100. Ranking the results in few classes (five?) is another option for qualitative indicators.

See part 4

3-  List of data / parameters required for computation.

Required data:
- Elemental composition ( %) of surface sediment collected by means of a Van Veen grab equipped with screen doors at standardized sampling points.

4-  Description of scientific meaning, references

The "scientific meaning" of TOC is fairly simple. This indicator is very used from scientists. A lot of bibliographic references exist about this indicator. It consents to have a “spatial” imagine of “cageprint” on seabed. The different concentrations in relationship with the distance from the cages, measure the influence area of cages on seabed.
We think that two approach are possible to utilize the TOC data correctly. The first, that we could named “the SEPA approach”, defines an area of Appreciable Zone Effect around the cages. Outside this limit (m....?) we can establish the no overcoming of a concentration settled. We think that could be a problem establish a common distance between the different sites monitored later in WP5. The second, that we could named “the classes approach” can consider gradient concentrations (concentric rings ??; transects in function of current direction ??) in relationship with distance from the cages. We think that this solution could have problems to homogenize the different site studied in WP 5. In the end, the absence of institutional quality water indicator for Italy certainly and (perhaps) for other European country, is a serious problem respect to ECASA aims.
I would highlight the TS as an important indicator. In our study, in press on Aquaculture (Porrello et al., 2005), we considered an indicators cluster to evaluate the impact produced from a fish farm in Tyrrhenian sea: sediment water content SWC, total volatile substance (TVS) porosity, total phosphorus (TP), total carbon (TC), total organic carbon (OC), total nitrogen (TN), total sulphur (TS), potential redox (Eh), and sulfide (according to Wildish et al., 1999). Among the various parameters considered, we highlight the importance of TS percentage. The TS increase in the sediment can be considered as the “sediment memory” since it underlines the sulfide metallic precipitation from sulphate reduction activity. The TS percentage could have a great interest to evaluate also the site “recovery time
Synthetic references:
Porrello et al., 2005, The influence of marine cages on the sediment chemistry in the Western Mediterranean Sea. Aquaculture in press.
Wildish, D.J., Akagi, H.M., Hamilton, N. and Hargrave, B.T. 1999. A Recommended Method for Monitoring Sediments to Detect Organic Enrichment from Mariculture in the Bay of Fundy. Canadian Technical Report of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 2286, 1-31.
Black, K.D., Kiemer, M.C.B., Ezzi, I.A. 1996. The relationships between hydrodynamics, the concentration of hydrogen sulfide produced by polluted sediment and fish health at several marine cage farms in Scotland and Ireland. Journal of Applied Ichthyology 12, 15-20.
Black, K.D., McDougall, N. 2002. Hydrography of four Mediterranean marine cage sites. Journal of Applied Ichthyology 18, 129-133.
Brooks, K. M., Mahnken, C.V.W. 2003. Interaction of Atlantic salmon in the Pacific north-west environment. II. Organic wastes. Fisheries Research 62, 255-293.
Karakassis, I., Tsapakis, M., Hatziyanni, E. 1998. Seasonal variability in sediment profiles beneath fish farm cages in the Mediterranean. Marine Ecology Progress Series 162, 243-252.
Karakassis, I., Hatziyanni, E., Tsapakis, M., Plaiti, W. 1999. Benthic recovery following cessation of fish farming: A series of successes and catastrophes. Marine Ecology Progress Series 184, 205-218.
Karakassis, I., Tsapakis, M., Hatziyanni, E., Papadopoulou, K.N., Plaiti, W. 2000. Impact of cage farming of fish on the seabed in three Mediterranean coastal areas. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 57, 1462-1471.
Karakassis, I. 2001. Ecological effects of fish farming in the Mediterranean. In Cahiers Options Méditerranéennes vol. 55. Environmental Impact Assessment of Mediterranean Aquaculture Farms. Proceeding of the seminar of the CIHEAM network on technology of aquaculture in the Mediterranean (TECAM), Zaragoza (Spain), 17-21 January 2000, 15-22.
Karakassis, I. 2002. Monitoring guidelines and modelling tools for environmental impact assessment. In Aquaculture Europe 2002, European Aquaculture Society special publication 32, 61-70.

5-  Range of validity; please provide a description of the field of validity for the indicator, its limits, endpoints. Careful explanations should be given in a table about the correspondence between the computed values and the impact (from positive effect, no impact , moderate impact, high impact, unacceptable impact).

6 -Type of aquaculture on which this indicator applies

-Cage aquaculture

7  - Relevant environments for this indicator

Open sea
Sheltered areas (bays, fjord, estuaries)

8- Quotation. We will need to select the most appropriate indicators to be proposed for EIA and site selection. Please suggest a quotation for this indicator for the following criteria (from A, perfectly adequate, to E, not relevant), to help evaluating the indicator within WP 4. Additional comments are welcome.

·  Direct relevance to objectives: The indicator selection must be closely linked to the requirements of the EU: Use for environmental impact assessment and site selection. This aspect should be detailed. - A

·  Clarity in design : It is important that the selected indicators are defined clearly in order to avoid confusion in their development or interpretation. - A

·  Realistic collection or development costs: Indicators must be practical and realistic, and their cost of collection and development therefore need to be considered. This may lead to trade-offs between the information content of various indicators and the cost of collecting them. - B

·  High quality and reliability: Indicators, and the information they provide, are only as good as the data from which they are derived. - A

·  Appropriate spatial and temporal scale: Careful thought should be given to the appropriate spatial and temporal scale of indicators. - B

·  Obvious significance: The meaning and usefulness of the indicator should easily be understood by stakeholders. They would preferably use the levels of dissolved oxygen, rather of sulphide concentrations. - C

9- Data and models related to this indicator, available for use by WP 4. Please list the data and models output available at local, national or regional scales for use by ECASA. They may not correspond to the more theoretical list asked for in §3.

ICRAM is carrying out a new research project using the same scientific approach in Adriatic Sea to validate this approach in different environmental condition.

10- Suggestions for use by WP 5. Give examples of indicators/aquaculture/environments which can be field-tested during the course of WP 5.

We hope for ECASA objectives:
-  to define a “common scientific protocol” (including materials and methods) between the partners BEFORE the sampling campaigns;
-  the use of few chemical parameters (very significant) common to all partners. These parameters would be used both in open sea and in sheltered areas.

[1] Please return these sheets to the WP 2 leader, BEFORE end of March 2005.

[i] This document is intended to be used for internal work on ECASA workpackage. The final indicator sheet may include a format somewhat different. Please suggest any improvement for both the cojntent and the form of this document.