Multi-use of offshore wind farms with low-trophic aquaculture can help achieve global sustainability goals

Abstract

Multi-use of offshore wind farms with low-trophic aquaculture could provide sustainable energy, nutritious seafood, and restorative ecosystem services through nutrients and carbon capture and utilization. In a transition zone between marine and brackish seas, our model predicted that allocating 10% of projected wind farm areas to blue mussel and sugar kelp aquaculture in the North Sea - Baltic Sea transition zone could yield 18 t-fresh weight ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹. Total carbon captured and harvested from seaweed biomass and mussel shells would equal 40% of the carbon dioxide emissions from the Danish agricultural sector. Furthermore, global aquaculture production is projected to increase by 132% compared to current production. With technological and regulatory challenges still to be addressed, these findings demonstrate a vast potential of multi-use in offshore areas, which can generate blue biomass with fewer user conflicts, while mitigating eutrophication and climate change, thereby supporting multiple global sustainable development goals.

Combining mussel and macroalgae farming with offshore wind farms can provide emission capture and utilization of carbon and macro-nutrients for food, feed, and materials, suggest up-scaled model simulations from the North and Baltic Seas.