Introduction
IMTA is well recognised as a promising advancement for sustainable development of aquaculture, offering a method to increase productivity while, at the same time, reducing environmental impacts. The concept of IMTA is to farm species of different trophic levels, complementary to each other, so that the wastes and by-products of one species become the feed, fertiliser and energy source for another. This practice is shown to remove waste materials from fed species and lower the nutrient load in the water. IMTA is in its infancy in Europe and commercial level IMTA is rare. Understanding the validity of the IMTA approach, the interaction of the trophic levels and. the management of IMTA in large-scale areas, remains a challenge.
Methodology
The H2020 IMPAQT project (https://impaqtproject.eu/) worked to promote the eco-intensification of aquaculture by demonstrating the eco-efficiency and minimisation of environmental impacts, the socio-economic benefits and ecosystem services, and promoting the transition towards a circular economy business model. IMPAQT has developed an intelligent management platform which featured an autonomous data acquisition and communication system, an advanced IMTA model and an intelligent management system to achieve a holistic approach addressing this complete system view.
Results
Outputs from the IMPAQT project will be presented. Technologies developed and deployed include novel sensors, data acquisition and communication systems. These data aggregators and power management tools have been developed as an integrated management platform, feeding into an intelligent management system (IMS), operating at the scale of an IMTA farm. This system comprises analysis and decision support functionalities, utilising data from various sensors, remote data and crowd sourced data. The data is used to determine environmental quality, stock welfare and assist with farm management to monitor and manage IMTA production and enable enhanced operational decisions for animal welfare, production optimisation, environmental protection and food-quality assessment. The Impaqt platform and IMTA set-ups have been validate in six pilot sites across Europe, Turkey and China.
Supporting this, an IMTA model has been utilised to show the responses and interactions between IMTA farm components and their footprint on the environment in different nutrient environments, and identified controlling processes for incorporation in future models to improve their predictive value.
The Impaqt pilot site outputs provided data to demonstrate the circularity, sustainability and eco-efficiency from IMTA as well as the socioeconomic benefits, cost effectiveness, and the ecosystem services provided by IMTA. An overview of the project out puts will be presented.
Acknowledgments
This work is part of the IMPAQT project, funded by the EU H2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 774109.