5 Discussion—interpretation
5.1 System boundaries
This EIA had limited budget and time at its disposal and
therefore focused on the main processes and impacts.
Processes and impacts deemed to be less important or not
relevant were excluded.
We did not have enough information to calculate nutrient
discharge via the refreshment water of farms producing fish
seed and fingerlings. However, this production process used
less than 0.5% of inputs used for grow-out and was
therefore considered negligible and excluded from this
study to save time. Our decision to focus on the grow-out
process is justified by the findings of other LCAs of
aquaculture, e.g. on shrimp in Thailand (Mungkung 2005)
and Pangasius in Indonesia (Aubin 2008). These studies
confirm the low environmental impact of this production
stage.