Earth Observations for Climate-Ready Aquaculture Management and Siting to Improve Food Security and Ocean Health in Palau, a Small Island Developing State

Abstract:

The Nature Conservancy is working in collaboration with the Government of Palau to utilize remotely-sensed earth observations in concert with best international practices to sustainably site (locate) and manage climate-ready marine aquaculture farms in Palau. Palau is a small island developing state whose citizens consume more wild fish per capita than nearly any country on earth. Climate change impacts are projected to decrease wild catches by 25% in Palau, creating an impending food security crisis. Marine aquaculture—the practice of farming aquatic organisms —has been identified by the Government of Palau, The Nature Conservancy and partners as a primary way to meet food production needs. However, Palau does not have the existing technical capacity to utilize Earth observations to inform the spatial planning needed to manage an aquaculture sector sustainably without the potential for environmental harm.

Marine spatial planning for the aquaculture sector is the result of incorporating complex datasets into a modeling environment with the ultimate goal of avoiding space use conflicts, reducing environmental impacts, and identifying optimal production locations. Data are limited for remote island nations, thus, aquaculture planning for such regions requires novel techniques for data acquisition, processing, and utilization. This session presents a project in the Republic of Palau, which aims to balance the development of a marine aquaculture industry with the need to protect Palau’s pristine marine environment. The presentation will address the complexities of siting marine aquaculture in a dynamic lagoon environment in Palau, with a particular focus on: (i) the approaches employed to process remotely sensed (e.g. high resolution bathymetry from Landsat 8, sea surface temperature from MUR, chlorophyll a and kd490 from MODIS) and locally available datasets, (ii) technical and stakeholder engagement methods for performing marine spatial planning, and (iii) preliminary results of discrete aquaculture zone identification.