Clara Vasquez-Mejia, Heiðdís Smáradóttir, Guðrún Hilmarsdóttir, Hildur Inga Sveinsdóttir, Alessandro Manzardo, María Guðjónsdóttir and Ólafur Ögmundarson
Introduction: Aquaculture is the fastest-growing food sector worldwide and could substantially contribute to global food security if geared towards more sustainable practices. In 2021, Iceland produced about 44,504 tonnes of Atlantic salmon in the ocean and 1,954 tonnes in land operations, and land-based production is expected to reach 40,000 tonnes in the coming years. Iceland relies heavily on foreign countries to produce grains for aquafeed. Methods: The water scarcity (WSF) and carbon footprints (CF) of aquafeed needed to farm Atlantic salmon in Iceland in 2021, both on land and ocean, were studied. Feed composition data was gathered from the industry coupled with available scientific reports. The origin of specific ingredients used for aquafeed were estimated using the FAOSTAT trade database. Results: This study suggests that aquafeed needed for ocean-based salmon farming in 2021 was responsible for 28,033,431 m3 of freshwater use and 66,046 tCO2-eq (or 630 m3 and 1.48 tCO2-eq per tonne of farmed salmon), while land-operations resulted in 592,875 m3 of freshwater use and 2,612 tCO2-eq (or 304 m3 and 1.33 tCO2-eq per tonne of farmed salmon). The WSF results difference between the land- and ocean-based scenarios can be associated with a larger number of ingredients used in ocean-based farming and the uncertainty associated with their origin. Conclusions: This study allows mapping and visualizing how dependent Icelandic aquaculture is on plant ingredients from other countries with higher water scarcity, and provides an opportunity to reduce the WSF and CF of aquafeed by implementing better practices in ingredient source selection.
