ANNALES • Ser. hist. nat. • 13 • 2003 * 1 • Supplement
THE BIOFAQS PROJECT: BIO-FILTRATION A N D  AQUACULTURE: 
AN EVALUATION OF SUBSTRATE DEPLOYMENT PERFORMANCE 
W ITHIN MARICULTURE DEVELOPMENTS
Kenneth D. BLACK
Scottish Association for Marine Science, Dunstaffnage Marine Laboratory Oban, UK-Argyll, PA37 1QA
E-mail: kdb@dml.ac.uk
EDITORIAL
The use of biofiltration to improve water quality in 
land-based, intensive aquaculture systems where water 
is recycled is standard practice. However, most fin-fish 
mariculture is undertaken under intensive farming con­
ditions in open cage culture in inshore coastal waters. 
At present, such farms are solely reliant on the local en­
vironment for waste assimilation services. The accumu­
lation of particulate organic waste material on the sea­
bed can have substantial effects on the biological com­
position of the seabed communities (Pearson & Black, 
2001) and, in severe cases, impact on the health and 
growth of target culture species with potentially delete­
rious effects on the economic performance of the farm. 
In many countries regulations to control the scale of fish 
farming are based on constraining impacts on the sea 
bed ecology and sediment biogeochemistry. There has 
also been considerable interest in the effects that dis­
solved organic and inorganic nutrients from intensive 
open aquaculture may have on the marine ecosystem.
A large proportion of externally supplied fish feed is 
lost to the marine environment as particulate organic 
carbon rich in nitrogen and phosphorus (Black, 2001). 
Given the parlous state of many of the world's fisheries, 
this represents a waste of valuable resources. Since an­
cient times practices involving the co-culture of species 
at different trophic levels has been used to increase the 
yield of agriculture and maximise the yield of edible 
biomass from available nutrient supplies. The world's 
most efficient traditional aquaculture/agriculture system 
was developed in China where dike-and-pond systems 
involving carp polyculture, sugarcane, vegetables, rice
and fruit were nourished by pig, duck, water buffalo and 
human manures (Smil, 2001).
Thus two possible objectives for research in the area 
of biofiltration and aquaculture are 1) the reduction in 
environmental impact by increasing the assimilative ca­
pacity of the local environment and 2) the more efficient 
use of nutrients to increase farm production. A third pos­
sible objective is that of increasing local biodiversity 
although the value of this aspect both to the ecosystem 
and to society is much more difficult to quantify.
BIOFAQs (BIOFi Itration and Aquaculture: an
Evaluation of Substrate Deployment Performance with 
Mariculture Developments) was funded under Frame­
work Programme 5: Quality of Life of the European 
Commission.
The main initial objective related to reduction in en­
vironmental impacts w ith three inter-related subsidiary 
objectives:
1. To quantify the effectiveness of bio-filter use in as­
sociation with mariculture within both economic and 
environmental frameworks on a pan-European scale.
2. To optimise bio-filter designs and placement pro­
tocols in line with geographical differences and vali­
dated model predictions. This objective was assessed 
principally through mesocosm experimentation.
3. To examine the environmental and regulatory op­
tions governing post-bio-filter usage and to provide de­
tailed economic analyses of bio-filter use compared 
with existing practices.
Initial experimental work focused on the deployment 
of identical plastic mesh cylinders in each of 4 study 
sites in Scotland, Slovenia, Greece and Israel. These 
were moored w ith a high degree of replication in waters
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ANNALES • Ser. hist. nat. • 13 • 2003 • 1 • Supplement
Kenneth D. BLACK: EDITORIAL, 1-2
closely adjacent to active marine fish farms and allowed 
to be colonized with local flora and fauna. In each 
country the balance between heterotrophic and autotro- 
phic colonizers was different as was the colonizing suc­
cession and the predation or grazing response.
Removing nutrient from the fish farming system using 
naturally settling communities would involve not only 
establishing a large colonial biomass but a means of 
harvesting this and the production of useful products. 
On the basis of the experience of the initial experiments 
and as a consequence of discussions with the aquacul­
ture industry, it was decided to pursue the second phase 
of experiments using substrates likely to be preferentially 
settled with a more valuable secondary harvest. For ex­
ample in Scotland, ropes used for the culture of edible 
mussel Mytilus edulis were deployed. Mussels settling 
on these ropes demonstrated increased growth com­
pared to mussels grown in control locations outside of 
the farm influence.
Economic models of secondary production both with 
respect to the value of reduced environmental impact
from fin-fish culture and the value of the secondary har­
vest have been evaluated as has the various legal and 
regulatory issues of biofilter deployment across a range 
of different jurisdictions.
At the time of writing, results from the project are 
still being analyzed and evaluated and several questions 
remain to be answered. The present volume represents a 
collection of some of the research that has been under­
taken during the course of this work. Hopefully, it w ill 
give more than a flavour of what is to come when the 
project is complete and the data from across the range 
of sites and experiments are assimilated and synthe­
sized. Progress of the BIOFAQs project can be moni­
tored by reference to the project web site at 
www.sams.ac.uk.
Integrated aquaculture is an old concept currently 
being rejuvenated by research effort in many countries. 
Hopefully, the result w ill be in more sustainable, pro­
ductive aquaculture providing crops of high nutritional 
value while minimizing harmful effects on the marine 
environment.
PROJEKT BIOFAQ: BIOFILTRACIJA IN AKVAKULTURA
IZVLEČEK
Človek se z marikulturo ukvarja že od nekdaj. V novejšem času pa je  pokazal precejšen interes za obsežnejše 
raziskave v tej oblik i marikulture, in sicer z namenom, da se ugotovijo potencialne prednosti za okolje prek m in i­
miziranja odplak, še bolj pa neposredne gospodarske koristi s proizvodnjo sekundarnih pridelkov. BIOFAQ, projekt 
Evropske unije, že li dognati ekološki proces koloniziranja na umetnih podlagah, razvrščenih ob ribogojnicah, poleg 
tega pa tudi raziskati pravne in gospodarske okvire za takšen razvoj v več evropskih jurisdikcijah. Pričujoči sklop 
vsebuje kratke članke, k i pojasnjujejo nekatere pomembne vidike tega projekta.
PROGETTO BIOFAQ: BIO-FILTRAZIONE ED ACQUACOLTURA
SINTESI
L'acquacoltura integrata viene praticata da tempi remoti. D i recente é aumentato considerevolmente l'interesse 
scientifico per tale forma di acquacoltura alio scopo di determinare, tramite la minimizzazione dei materiali di 
scarto, potenziali benefici all'ambiente e benefici economici derivanti dalla produzione di raccolti secondari. II pro- 
getto EU BIOFAQ é finalizzato a determinare i processi ecologici d i colonizzazione di substrati artificiali posizionati 
in prossimita d i allevamenti di pešci e, in aggiunta, a esaminare le cornici legali ed economiche per tali tip i d i inter- 
venti in diverse giurisdizioni europee. Questo volume contiene brevi anicoli che sommariamente evidenziano al- 
cuni importanti aspetti del progetto.
REFERENCES
Black, K. D. (2001): Environmental, Economic and So­
cial Impacts of Mariculture. In: Steele, J., S. Thorpe & K. 
Turekian (eds.): Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences. Aca­
demic Press, London, p. 1578-1584.
Pearson, T. H. & K. D. Black (2001): The environmental 
impact of marine fish cage culture. In: Black, K. D. (ed.):
Environmental Impacts of Aquaculture. Sheffield Aca­
demic Press, p. 1-31.
Smil, V. (2001): Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl 
Bosch, and the transformation of world food production. 
The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, 
England.
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