The environmental impact and development direction of grass carp, Ctenopharyngodon idella, aquaculture

Abstract

Grass carp, Ctenopharyngodon idella, is the largest freshwater aquaculture fish species worldwide. However, its environmental impacts are increasingly controversial. In this paper, we considered the production of a 1500 g commercial grass carp as an example, analyzed through a life cycle assessment. The results showed that the indicators of global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential, eutrophication potential, freshwater eco-toxicity potential (FAETP), land competition (LC), and fossil energy consumption of producing 1 kg of grass carp were equivalent to 5.7267 kg of CO2, 0.0648 kg of 1,4-DCB0, 0.0010 kg of P, 0.0276 kg of SO2, 8.2951 m2, 0.3491 kg of oil, respectively, and were mainly from feed processing and water pollution. Compared with pig, beef, and sheep production, grass carp production has lower environmental impacts, but in terms of GWP, FAETP, and LC were significantly higher than chicken production, especially water pollution and discharge, which is an important consideration. This study clarifies the direction of grass carp production and key focus areas include producing low carbon and nitrogen emission feed, application of ecological engineering aquaculture system, intelligent mechanization technology and equipment.