Technological advances in aquaculture farms for minimal effluent discharge to oceans

Aquaculture is an expanding, high value primary industry in many countries including Australia. At the same time, the environmental sustainability of aquaculture is attracting increasing attention, especially in Australia. One of the major environmental issues facing aquaculture in the 21st century is the management of discharge of nutrient-rich waters from land-based aquaculture systems into coastal waters, which affects the marine environment. It is of great concern especially for the world renowned Great Barrier Reef (GBR) where the nutrient discharge into the coastal waters in its proximity, and subsequent algal growth, could cause damage to the corals and its fragile ecosystem. Therefore, load-based licences are issued to aquaculture farms near GBR to meet the stringent effluent discharge requirements and this has forced the aquaculture industry located near the GBR, such as those in North Queensland, to look ahead and do something via cleaner production. This paper deals with several technologies that are being tested in various aquaculture farms especially in North Queensland in order to treat the aquaculture effluent for the purpose of reuse as well as the legal and environmental drivers that led to the development and implementation of these new technologies.