US: New NOAA calculator helps oyster growers quantify their environmental benefit

Published Oct 28, 2024

Tridge summary

NOAA has launched the Aquaculture Nutrient Removal Calculator, a tool to estimate the nitrogen removal capacity of oyster farms. This tool is aimed at helping growers provide evidence of the ecological benefits of their farms, such as water cleanliness, during the aquaculture permitting process. The tool requires basic information about the farm, such as the number of oysters harvested and the culture method used, to generate a report on the farm's nitrogen removal capabilities. The results can also be used to educate the community about the benefits of shellfish farming. The tool will be updated with new data and may be expanded to include phosphorus removal and to cover the Gulf of Mexico.

Disclaimer:The above summary was generated by Tridge's proprietary AI model for informational purposes.

Original content

Oyster growers can now prove and track how well their farms benefit the local water supply thanks to a new tool from NOAA’s Connecticut-based Milford Lab. The Aquaculture Nutrient Removal Calculator, which provides growers with a science-based estimate of how much nitrogen their farms remove from local waterways, will help farmers to demonstrate what scientists call the ecological services (nitrogen reduction capability) of their farms. The team behind the project, which included scientists from the Northeast Fisheries Science Center and the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, hopes that this will help farmers with the aquaculture permitting process. “We hope this tool will provide growers and managers with an easy-to-use way to generate defensible values and context for the ecosystem services provided by a proposed or existing farm,” NOAA Marine Ecologist Chris Schillaci said.“We’ve heard from both regulators and industry members that they need a simple, intuitive way to ...

Source: Seafoodsource