Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of salmonid aquaculture systems: status and perspectives

This study is the first step of a PhD project characterizing the environmental impacts generated by disease and parasite treatments in the Norwegian salmon industry. It reviews LCAs of salmonid aquaculture systems, systematically investigating the methods, inventories, impact assessments and conclusions of 24 original studies (status). Based on results obtained, and in the light of recent research developments, suggestions are made to improve standardization, the variable inventory data quality (representativity and completeness), and the challenges to compare environmental impacts across studies. Among other things, this study discusses why systematic LCA data reporting is desirable and how the lack of datasets and models to measure the impacts of disease and disease treatments is problematic for aquaculture environmental assessments (perspectives).