Purpose As capture fishery production has reached its limits
and global demand for aquatic products is still increasing,
aquaculture has become the world’s fastest growing animal
production sector. In attempts to evaluate the environmental
consequences of this rapid expansion, life cycle assessment
(LCA) has become a frequently used method. The present
review of current peer-reviewed literature focusing on LCA
of aquaculture systems is intended to clarify the methodological
choices made, identify possible data gaps, and provide
recommendations for future development within this field of
research. The results of this review will also serve as a start-up
activity of the EU FP7 SEAT (Sustaining Ethical Aquaculture
Trade) project, which aims to perform several LCA studies on
aquaculture systems in Asia over the next few years.
Methods From a full analysis of methodology in LCA, six
phases were identified to differ the most amongst ten
peer-reviewed articles and two PhD theses (functional unit,
system boundaries, data and data quality, allocation, impact
assessment methods, interpretation methods). Each phase is
discussed with regards to differences amongst the studies,
current LCA literature followed by recommendations where
appropriate. The conclusions and recommendations section
reflects on aquaculture-specific scenarios as well as on some
more general issues in LCA.