DEPOMOD

Description

DEPOMOD was developed in Scotland and intended to be used by industry, consultants and the regulatory agencies as an objective aid or tool to assist in the management and decision making process with regard to the marine finfish farms. DEPOMOD predicts the depositional field of solid wastes from finfish farms and the associated changes in the benthos. The modelling package consists of a series of modules or sub-models that in addition to the particle tracking model, includes a resupension/organic decay module and a semi-empirical benthic impact module. DEPOMOD also contains a fish growth model so that feeding rates over the production cycle can be determined. While DEPOMOD's predictive capability for benthic impact has been established for several Scottish farm sites, its predictive capability has not been tested and established for finfish farms in BC. In order to test and develop DEPOMOD's predictive capability for the BC environment the benthic impact module needs to be evaluated and refined using the various set of existing research and monitoring data from BC finfish farm sites. The analyses of the extensive study and monitoring program data sets with the objective of validating models of finfish farm wastes and benthic impacts will if successful provide a useful tool to both the industry and regulators. Specifically, the model could be used to select optimum sites, determine optimal farm configurations and manage farm operations so as to minimize benthic impact. In effect our understanding of the capacity of a particular site to assimilate organic rich wastes from finfish farms and our ability to manage the environmental impacts would be improved by the use of tools like DEPOMOD.

Program Name

Aquaculture Collaborative Research and Development Program (ACRDP)

Year(s)

2004 - 2005

Ecoregion(s)

National

Principal Investigator(s)

Dario Stucchi
Email: StucchiD@pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca