Abstract for: Development of a farm-scale system dynamics model of salmon cage aquaculture for climate change impact assessment

This study used system dynamics to model salmon production in the marine environment. Model is based on one-dimensional, box modelling approach, divided into three components namely, water quality, fish growth and health & welfare sub-models. The first component deals with dissolved oxygen dynamics, formulated with photosynthesis and air-sea flux as source terms and respiration as the major sink term. Three forcing functions drive the dynamics: light and heat produced by solar energy and the wind regime. These are time-dependent inputs with a 1-hour simulation time step to account for daily and seasonal dynamics of the model variables. Since a baseline simulation of this sub-model will describe a normal behaviour of the farm environment in terms of water temperature, dissolved oxygen level, current velocity, etc., climate change impact scenarios can be simulated. The second and third model components will together serve as the response model, and these are underway. Both will interact with each other and with the water quality model and calibrated with farm production data. As many growth models of farmed salmon are based on temperature and body weight, we aim to leverage on the power of system dynamics to improve our understanding of multiple stress effects for climate change impact assessment and evaluation of adaptation strategies.