Aquaculture & Fisheries

Shellfish Farming

Shellfish farming helps to improve sediment quality by loosening and dispersing silt and muck, and helps add oxygen to bottom waters and sediments. Filter-feeding bivalve molluscs are an essential link between the bottom-dwelling aquatic communities and phytoplankton production in the water column. Shellfish are highly efficient water filters that directly remove particulate material thus reducing turbidity and both directly and indirectly removing nitrogen and other nutrients. Via this process, these highly efficient water purifiers remove or reduce organic matter, nutrients, silt, bacteria and viruses, and improve clarity and light transmission which, in turn, improves the condition of critical habitat, including survival of critical habitat species such as sea grasses and other submerged vegetation.