EO4SA – Earth Observations for Sustainable Aquaculture

Aquaculture offers an additional supply of human food resources as well as an alternative to overfishing. Accordingly, aquaculture is a mean to meet the growing global demand for (sea)food and a low carbon footprint protein source but the sustainability of farming activities is impacted by several key factors. These factors or the environmental conditions associated with them are possible to be monitored by Earth Observations.

The Earth Observations for Sustainable Aquaculture (EO4SA) project aims to provide Earth Observations (EO) based products to enhance the sustainability of the aquaculture industry. It will develop innovative EO high-level indicators for supporting the sustainable development, regulations and management of aquaculture farming in coastal and offshore waters. In particular, it will address four problem areas that impact sustainability of farming activities across pilot sites in Norway, Spain, and the Philippines:

• Fish mortality induced by salmon lice outbreaks (Lepeophtheirus salmonis).
• Toxic Harmful Algae Blooms (HABs) impacting shellfish farming.
• Conflicting multi-use of coastal environments.
• Unreported and unregulated aquaculture development and exploitation of marine resources.

The project will integrate satellite data with in-situ observations and artificial intelligence models. The EO products will be co-designed with early adopters—including regulators, industry stakeholders, and researchers—and deployed on cloud platforms.

The EO4SA project is part of the Pioneer Earth Observation apPLications for the Environment (PEOPLE) EO for a Sustainable Blue Economy projects, funded by the Earth Observation Science for Society programmatic element of the ESA FutureEO-1 Segment-2 Programme (2023-2025), specifically in the Aquaculture activities.