Overview

Demand for seafood throughout the world is increasing while landings from capture fisheries are static. In Australia, the growing seafood consumption is being increasingly met by importation (imports of fisheries products have increased by 52%, over the period 1992/93 to 2002/03; ABARE 2004). In Australia, the value of aquaculture production has trebled in the last decade representing an annual growth of 14% in nominal terms and 11% in real terms.

Expansion of coastal aquaculture is limited by a shortage of suitable sites with the necessary water quality, depth and proximity to land-based infrastructure that are not either being used or considered for urban and tourist related development or judged to be of too high environmental value for aquaculture.

Rising saline groundwater is the biggest environmental problem in Australia and currently affects over 2.5 million hectares of land. It is estimated that within the next 30-40 years, the affected area will grow more than fourfold. One of the key methods to reduce the effects of salinisation is to pump the saline groundwater into large ponds for disposal by evaporation.

The obvious benefit of Inland Saline Aquaculture is that it may offer a partial solution to the shortage of coastal sites for farming. By incorporating aquaculture into saline groundwater interception and evaporation schemes, aquaculture provides added incentives regarding the costly business of building and operating these schemes.