Guest Seminar: Modeling Macroalgae Growth and Nutrient Dynamics for Offshore Aquaculture

Speaker

Dr. Kristen Davis
Assistant Professor
UC Irvine

Abstract

Offshore macroalgal farming is being assessed for its potential as a biofuel resource. The aquaculture industry and regulators need improved tools for locating optimal macroalgal farm sites, evaluating farm designs for structural soundness under rough ocean conditions, assessing new macroalgal cultivation techniques and operational procedures to maximize productivity, and for predicting the influence of cultivation on coastal ecosystems. Proper design requires a framework capable of capturing the complex interplay between currents, surface waves, turbulence, canopy architecture, nutrient and light fields, and biological processes in an ever-changing ocean environment. We have developed a flexible MacroAlgae Cultivation MODeling System (MACMODS) which integrates a state-of-the-art, open-source regional ocean model with a fine-scale hydrodynamic model. This model is capable of resolving turbulent fluxes within a canopy at sub-meter resolution, and features a macroalgal growth model that accounts for hydrodynamically-mediated biological processes like the enhancement of nutrient uptake due to within canopy flows and waves. These tools are key to evaluating different farm designs in order to maximize yield, while minimizing cost and environmental impacts. Here we will present the computational framework of MACMODS and provide an assessment of offshore macroalgal farming potential at two sites in southern California.