Planet NOAA Podcast Episode 8: SEA-stainability

Transcript

[Planet NOAA theme music plays]

SYMONE BARKLEY (HOST): Welcome back to Planet NOAA! I’m your host, Symone Barkley. Today, we’re traveling to the very frontier of farming – the field of aquaculture! As our planet continues to transform, we’re increasingly turning to aquaculture as a source for safe, sustainable, and plentiful protein in the form of farmed seafood. We’ll hear from the experts that are pioneering the latest marine monitoring, breeding and harvesting techniques to help improve nutrition and food security around the nation.

[NOAA in the News theme music plays]

HOST: I’m here with NOAA Public Affairs Specialist and Climate Scientist Tom DiLiberto, who’s got the latest scoop on NOAA in the News. Tom, please tell me fall is just around the corner. I cannot stand this heat!

TOM DILIBERTO: Symone, it’s so close I can almost taste the pumpkin spice. And not to burst your bubble, but fall may come with its own set of weather challenges! Luckily, the National Weather Service, or NWS, is here to get you prepped for any hazardous weather that may come your way this fall. And one thing to stay prepared for are wildfires. Yup, we’re not out of the woods yet when it comes to wildfire season – so keep an eye out for red flag warnings from your local NWS office.

HOST: Tom, what’s a red flag warning?

DILIBERTO: Red flag warnings mean that critical fire weather conditions are happening or are about to happen in your area. That’s when warm temps, low humidities, and strong winds combine to produce an increased risk of fire danger. You should always avoid activities that could spark a wildfire, but be especially aware of your surroundings during red flag warnings. Please don’t throw cigarettes or matches out of a vehicle; I’m begging you! If you’re having a campfire, go ahead and make s’mores, but never leave the fire unattended and make sure you extinguish it properly with plenty of water and stir until everything is cold to the touch. And be ready to act in case of a wildfire in your area. Have at least 2 evacuation routes planned, keep a go-kit ready, and listen for any updates or evac orders. You can keep tabs on those updates via the weather.gov site, NWS social media, your local NWS forecast office, or your handy NOAA weather radio.

HOST: Appreciate the reminder to update my go-kit! What else should I know about fall weather safety from NWS?

DILIBERTO: Well, it’s definitely not just wildfires. Any storm could knock out your power for an extended period of time, from your classic fall thunderstorm to a severe hurricane. So, if you have a home generator in case of these kinds of outages, the folks at the National Weather Service want to make sure that you’re practicing good generator safety – it can save your life! Portable generators produce carbon monoxide, which is toxic to humans and animals. So make sure you only use generators outside, away from your doors and windows. And double check that you’ve got a working, battery-powered carbon monoxide detector in your home before using a generator. You can visit weather.gov/wrn/fall-safety to increase your resilience to weather hazards – with tips now available in six different languages! Check it out! Don’t be a Gener-HATER.

HOST: Dear God. That’s a great sign to move onto our next segment.

[Did You NOAA theme music plays]

HOST: I’m here with Planet NOAA’s resident trivia expert and NOAA Heritage correspondent Tara Garwood. 

TARA GARWOOD: Hey Symone! Thanks for having me.

HOST: Tara, can you tell me a little bit about NOAA’s history with aquaculture, or marine farming?

GARWOOD: Sure! Let’s rewind a couple of decades to 1980, when the National Aquaculture Act was established. That act made aquaculture a national policy priority for the U.S. Since then, NOAA has helped support our country’s seafood production and the rebuilding of protected species and habitats through aquaculture. But the origins of aquaculture actually stretch back thousands of years. Humans have always had to find ingenious ways to source and grow food to sustain themselves, and aquaculture has been a common practice in many civilizations. Many oral historians date aquaculture’s origins to 4000 B.C. in China, where fish farmers raised carp in special ponds. Let’s look a little closer to home, though. In Hawaii, traditional fishponds called loko i’a have been used for nearly 1,000 years to raise and fatten fish until they’re ready to be harvested.

HOST: Hey, some things never change! We’ll hear more about the history of aquaculture and the development of NOAA’s aquaculture program right after this. 

[Roundtable theme music plays]

HOST: Picture this: you’re at a seafood restaurant with a group of friends for a fun night out. Your friends have just ordered a dozen fresh oysters to share, and you’re thinking about getting the cedar plank salmon for your main course. Or should you get the garlic shrimp pasta? Well, let’s take a moment to think about where this abundance of seafood options is coming from. As the demand for U.S. seafood has increased over the years, so has the science and technology needed to farm seafood in coastal marine waters and the open ocean. That’s all thanks to a practice called aquaculture. I’m here with Danielle Blacklock, Director of the NOAA Fisheries Office of Aquaculture. Danielle oversees the aquaculture component of NOAA’s sustainable seafood portfolio, and is responsible for providing the strategic vision for developing a strong marine aquaculture industry in the United States. She leads the office’s work on several distinct priority areas including regulation and policy, science, outreach, and international activities in support of U.S. aquaculture. Welcome, Danielle! 

DANIELLE BLACKLOCK: Thank you; it’s nice to be here today.

HOST: We’re also joined by Mark Rath, the Aquaculture Manager at the National Sea Grant Office. As co-lead of Sea Grant’s aquaculture portfolio, Mark supports the aquaculture research being conducted at state Sea Grant programs around the nation. Over the years he has worked with many species, including tilapia, yellow perch, oysters, clownfish, sea urchins, African clawed frogs and zebrafish. Thanks for being here, Mark. 

MARK RATH: Hi Symone, thanks for having me. 

HOST: Also with us today is Christopher Schillaci, a Marine Ecologist with the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, or NCCOS. Christopher coordinates the Marine Spatial Ecology Division’s aquaculture planning and environmental interactions portfolio. His work focuses on aquaculture spatial planning and site suitability modeling, as well as studying the effects of aquaculture development on coastal communities and the environment. Thanks for joining, Chris!

CHRISTOPHER SCHILLACI: Thanks for having me.

HOST: I’m also excited to welcome Renee Mercaldo-Allen, a Research Fishery Biologist with the Milford Laboratory at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center. Renee researches interactions between aquaculture practices and the marine environment, and is currently studying the use of oyster cages as habitat for juvenile fish utilizing video footage collected with GoPro cameras. Renee also serves as Chair of the NOAA Fisheries Flatfish Biology Conference. Glad to have you here, Renee.

RENEE MERCALDO-ALLEN: Thanks Symone, it’s nice to be here.

HOST: Thank you all for joining us. Today, we're producing more seafood via aquaculture than traditional wild harvesting, and that's according to the United Nations. So with this increasing focus on the field, can  you break down exactly what aquaculture is?

MERCALDO-ALLEN: Aquaculture is aquatic farming, the growing and harvesting of animals and plants that live in the water. It's a very resource-efficient and sustainable way to grow food. Shellfish aquaculture is actually the third most valuable fishery in the northeast, after scallops and American lobster. Here in Connecticut, shellfish aquaculture is a $30 million industry supporting local jobs and coastal communities. In the 1930s, oyster populations were declining here in Long Island Sound. In response, founding scientists at NOAA's Milford Lab, led by Dr. Victor Loosanoff, learned to spawn and reared oysters, and this contributed to the birth of modern shellfish aquaculture. These techniques are known as the Milford Method, and they're still used worldwide today to cultivate shellfish.

SCHILLACI: You know, for me, it's really trying to address the growing demand for seafood, reducing pressure on wild fisheries populations and kind of promoting sustainable domestic food production. And our hope is that by creating these opportunities, we're providing economic opportunities for coastal communities as well. You know, aquaculture is practiced in a shared space, and there's an entire regulatory structure that's in place to make sure that projects are sustainably planned as well as sustainably sited. And my role is really to provide information and science to coastal managers, regulators and communities about where are the ideal locations, both to grow aquaculture, as well as ideal from a perspective of minimizing conflict and impacts to the environment.

RATH: So, what is aquaculture? I mean, aquaculture is producing seafood on a farm instead of catching it in the wild. And it's just like any other form of food production or protein production or farming that we already do in the US. It has both impacts and benefits. When we do it conscientiously, like we do in the US, those impacts can be much lower than other forms of protein production that are widely practiced here. And the benefits to our health, our economy and the environment can be tremendous.

BLACKLOCK: As Mark mentioned, aquaculture is just like any other form of farming, except we can do it in a lot of different ways. We can farm in our ocean environment, close to shore or even further offshore. We can farm in recirculating farms, which are a lot of tanks inside, kind of like an aquarium. Or we can farm in ponds out on land. There are many different types of systems that we can use all to produce protein to fill our family's plates. So we do everything from technology transfer into industry of new ways to grow new species, development of new gear types, robust technologies, new strains of oysters resilient to climate change. And we also do research like Renee’s to help us answer some of the fundamental questions we have about…what are the interactions between aquaculture and the marine environment that we are growing it in, and how do we make sure that we are making sustainable choices? And we develop the tools to help us answer those questions using science at our core, because that is our core. We're a science agency. 

HOST: Thanks for that breakdown. Danielle, I like that phrase, “producing protein to fill our family’s plates.” As we’re thinking about new ways to put food on the table in a world that’s increasingly transforming due to climate change, how are warming waters impacting what we’re farming and consuming? And how are NOAA's aquaculture scientists helping us to build food resilience and security in the face of climate change? 

BLACKLOCK: We use aquaculture as a tool to create resilience of communities and to make our food system a bit more resilient. As wild stocks shift in productivity and location, bringing aquaculture into communities can help build the resilience of those economies, and making sure that we have a consistent supply of seafood on our docks. The other piece of the puzzle, when we talk about climate change in aquaculture, however, is making sure that the animals in the locations we choose are climate resilient. Aquaculture species are most vulnerable to climate stressors when they are small. And through hatchery and nursery technologies, we have the ability to protect and control them through that part of their lifecycle so that they have a much higher survivability rate out in the wild when they're planted.

MERCALDO-ALLEN: Along with warming waters, increased carbon dioxide in seawater, which is known as ocean acidification, can affect growth and survival of shellfish like clams, oysters and scallops. This research can help us better understand how shellfish respond and adapt to these varying environmental conditions, so that shellfish growers can prepare for the future. In addition to predicting the effects of environmental change, we're also proactively working on solutions. Milford Lab is partnering with USDA's Agricultural Research Service to develop the Northeast Oyster Breeding Center. The Center is working to breed families of oysters that are resilient to climate stressors like disease and warming seawater temperature. 

HOST: Renee, it’s great to hear that we’re using interagency partnerships to help marine species like oysters become more resilient to climate change. How are NOAA and USDA making this possible?

MERCALDO-ALLEN: This partnership uses advanced selective breeding methods to cultivate oysters that are both disease resistant and can adapt to changing environmental conditions by developing families of resistant oysters and making them available to hatcheries and growers. Our research supports the aquaculture industry as it responds to a changing climate. NOAA scientists are also developing and testing environmentally friendly probiotics to use in shellfish hatcheries to fight bacterial disease and improve larval survival.

HOST: Got it, thank you! Renee, thanks to research like yours, NOAA is able to invest in science that helps aquaculture farmers – like implementing those control factors that Danielle mentioned earlier. So, what are some other new farming tools and policies that have been developed via NOAA’s aquaculture program? What new species have been brought to market as a result?

SCHILLACI: You know, aquaculture has been around for a very long time, and it's really been a part of wild and traditional harvest activities. But what we're looking at doing is trying to find ways to ramp up production of aquaculture to meet those growing food needs. And we at NCCOS are really focused on science around spatial planning, understanding ocean spaces, understanding the communities that use those spaces, and creating tools that help growers; managers; the general public identify those ideal locations. So we've developed a series of tools; Ocean Reports is one, and it's kind of like Zillow for the ocean, where you look at space in the ocean. And it auto-generates information on what activities are occurring in that space; what are the environmental conditions in that space, and a series of other information that really helps folks plan, make decisions. In addition, we use a series of other modeling practices to look at planning on a larger scale. So Aquaculture Opportunity Areas is one. These are locations in the coastal or offshore ocean that meet that triple bottom line of sustainability for aquaculture. So they're economically sustainable, they're environmentally sustainable and they're socially sustainable. And you know, ideally they would support multiple commercial-scale farms while minimizing user conflict and environmental impacts. And NCCOS’ role with AOAs is really to provide that spatial science and suitability modeling. So we work with communities; we work with managers to develop massive data inventories that really characterize all those things that communities and managers need to think about. What type of fishing is occurring and can that fishing co-occur with aquaculture? Where are the protected resources, sensitive habitats? And that produces kind of a hotspot of where all the ideal locations are.

BLACKLOCK: One species that we've worked on is sablefish. Our researchers in the Northwest Fisheries Science Center have taken them all the way from figuring out how to grow them and what they eat, to making them more resilient and developing vaccines for sicknesses that they may get. For sablefish, we are partnered with the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe out in the Pacific Northwest, who's growing sablefish now. And it's in our markets. We also partner in Alaska to make sure that species like bull kelp are getting researched and making sure that we're able to grow wild types as efficiently and effectively as possible, because the market is demanding more and more each year.

HOST: Thanks, Danielle. Renee – as you mentioned at the top of our conversation, many of these new aquaculture tools and policies have been developed thanks to the pioneering research taking place at Milford Lab. You and your team have collected over 1,600 hours of GoPro camera footage to research interactions between oyster aquaculture gear and wild fish communities in Long Island Sound, Connecticut. Can you talk a bit about what the NOAA team has learned from these video studies so far?

MERCALDO-ALLEN: Sure. These inexpensive and easy-to-use cameras are an ideal tool for observing the underwater world of shellfish farms. Many farmers use multi-tiered oyster aquaculture cages to grow shellfish. They add structure to the seafloor environment. We see fish of all sizes and life stages using these cages as habitat. So far, we've seen 21 different fish species, including species that are commercially or recreationally important. We also see a variety of fish behavior associated with cages, such as foraging, sheltering, escaping from predators, grouping or schooling activity, as well as courtship and reproduction. These habitat-related behaviors suggest that aquaculture gear provides benefits or ecosystem services similar to natural rock reefs. We've also found that large shellfish farms that have many cages act much like artificial reefs, providing habitat for structure-oriented fish species like the black sea bass, scup, and tautog. And we've also created a Citizen Science guide that explains how our methods help shellfish growers use GoPro cameras to collect video on their own farms. 

HOST: Renee, it’s great to hear that this application of aquaculture is benefitting structure-oriented fish species. What about the surrounding waters themselves? Could you talk a little bit about some of the ecosystem services that aquaculture provides?

MERCALDO-ALLEN: It's exciting to me that aquaculture to raise oysters can also result in creating habitat for other species, that there's additional benefits to aquaculture besides just the main purpose, which is growing food. In addition to creating fish habitat, oysters also improve water quality in coastal waters by consuming excess algae caused by nutrient runoff and those scientists have been measuring these water quality benefits as well. 

SCHILLACI: And, you know, other services – we definitely know that oysters assimilate nutrients into their shells and tissues as they grow. And we have many coastal waters across the country that have too many nutrients. Those can lead to algae blooms. Those can lead to other impacts like low dissolved oxygen and fish kills. So, we definitely have the science that says shellfish aquaculture, seaweed aquaculture can help mitigate some of that excess nutrients, remove them from the water and improve water quality. In  addition, we know that oysters filter particles out of the water, and by removing particles from the water column, we're able to see enhancement to submerged aquatic vegetation in the form of light clarity and additional light penetration to help those submerged aquatic vegetation grow.

HOST: So, when I worked at the National Aquarium, which is located right in Baltimore's harbor, the harbor has these floating wetlands with oysters, as well as some nearby oyster cages that are deployed off the side of the pier. We weren't seeing a ton of species being super active in the harbor prior to the oyster cages being deployed, and to the floating wetlands being put into place. But once we added the cages into the harbor and deployed them off the pier, we started to see a lot more activity from other species of animals. Mud crabs and menhaden and American eel. And so, as we started to see the biodiversity increase, we built a middle school program around this. And so we had students come to the harbor’s waterfront and to take samples of water quality with us, and then identify what species would be able to survive based on the water quality parameters. And they kind of tested their hypothesis by opening those habitat cages and identifying the species that they found. And they were really excited because they’d see mud crabs and jellyfish and things that they didn’t know lived in the harbor right in the city where they’re walking past so often. And they had no idea that there were this many things living here. And so, I just wanted to kind of reinforce the idea that oyster shells and oysters do provide ecosystem services, and the idea that aquaculture gear, like habitat cages, can provide shelter for other organisms in a body of water. And – can help to increase biodiversity, which, in this case, helps increase pride in where you live and inquiry into science as well, because that was also a really big thing. This really helped the students to feel like scientists and to do work that scientists do. Mark – I want to pivot a bit to take a look at Sea Grant’s aquaculture portfolio. Can you tell me a bit about NOAA Sea Grant’s mission and place-based approach to aquaculture? 

RATH: Sure. So we’re an office at NOAA, but we operate through our 34 state-based Sea Grant programs that are located all over the country in coastal states, the Great Lakes states and island states and territories. So we've always kind of had this model of operating as something of a place-based enterprise. Another way to put that is that we usually work in kind of a bottom-up fashion, where each of our 34 programs first prioritize the needs of their own communities. Then, at the national level, we work to support them however we can in ways that also meet our federal mandates and our congressional direction. A good example of that in practice is our aquaculture supplemental program, where we match what our programs invest in aquaculture research by 50% using dollars from our national budget. It rewards them for thinking big and reaching for more when it comes to their aquaculture portfolios.

HOST: Thanks, Mark. I want to keep the theme of collaboration as a focus here – Chris, you had mentioned that aquaculture has been around for a long, long time. So, how is NOAA working with Indigenous communities and tribes to inclusively and equitably bolster our aquaculture planning around the nation? What does that look like in practice?

SCHILLACI: I mean, tribes are a key partner. They're a government entity unto themselves. And most importantly, tribes have a tremendous amount of Indigenous knowledge and traditional knowledge on the waters where, ideally, aquaculture could be sited. And so we work with tribes to incorporate their data; the data belongs to them, and if they're willing to share that information with us, we want to incorporate that into our suitability modeling. So a lot of it is meetings; a lot of it is talking with communities, talking with managers and developing spatial datasets of the ocean area that we're looking to do this planning and modeling work in. What it kind of looks like in practice is we have a team of incredibly talented spatial scientists that take that data and fit that into a grid cell. That kind of grid cell format is a five acre or ten acre chunk of ocean space across the larger planning area. We can look where we find high-scoring adjacent cells, and those give us kind of a cluster to focus on. And then we dig deep, we go back to communities and we ask more questions. We make sure we got it right. Ultimately, that looks like different hotspots across the ocean space that we're studying, where aquaculture has the greatest potential, both based on conflict and environmental impact minimization, as well as making sure that it has the characteristics that an aquaculturist needs to be successful.

HOST: Thanks, Chris. I want to zoom out from these cells a bit to working waterfronts, which play an important role in our nation’s seafood industry. How have working waterfronts changed over time with factors like gentrification, and what’s the larger impact on the seafood industry? 

RATH: I will take a crack at defining a working waterfront. It sort of defines itself, right? And it's a location along the coast where the work is done to make use of this busy, busy coastal ocean that we've got. It's a place where seafood is brought from the harvesters or the fishers onto the shore, where it's then picked up by processors and enters the supply chain. You've got differences in weather and climate in each of these different parts of the country where we've got working waterfronts; you have different species that people are fishing for. You've got different immigrant populations that make up these communities and are often a large percentage of the workforce on these working waterfronts. So each one has really its own personality and its own culture and its own history and its own challenges. The coastal ocean is a busy place. There's a lot of competition for oceanfront property, and it's everything from not just working waterfronts, but tourism and residents. People like to play in the ocean, and people also like to live near the ocean. And so as a country, as we have reduced the amount of seafood we produce domestically, as we've offshored a lot of our seafood processing, that's opened up the opportunity for other users to come in and buy up this coastal space. And so as the property has become more valuable, it's more difficult for industrial uses like seafood communities to take advantage of that same location. Working waterfronts are critical to our nation's seafood supply chain. They have been for hundreds of years. And as they shrink, we really need to be thoughtful and conscientious about what that means for us and our health and our economy. 

HOST: Now, as working waterfronts and coastal communities continue to grow and change, new voices and faces are joining the field of aquaculture. Danielle, how do you plan to grow the Fisheries aquaculture program with inclusion as a priority?

BLACKLOCK: To be inclusive, that means creating access. And one of the things that we do inside of NOAA Fisheries is we have an internal grant program creating access for diverse communities to better see and understand what aquaculture is and the opportunities that are there. It can look like investments in set-aside lab space for diverse students to come and use our NOAA lab facilities and better understand how aquaculture works and the research we do. We have a number of different projects going on to make sure that we're creating that access and opportunity, and that it's equitably available to all of our communities that we serve. Figuring out how to feed a growing population with inside the planetary bounds is a hard problem to solve, and sitting squarely in that solution set is aquaculture. To do that, we have to all work together. So, at NOAA, we work across our line offices, the National Ocean Service, as well as Sea Grant…we work throughout our research institutes and academia, and we partner with farmers themselves. It's going to take all of us in order to create the path for the future. 

RATH: At the National Sea Grant office, we recently, with the help of our Knauss fellow Kaitlyn Theberge, completed a needs assessment looking at minority-serving institutions around the country who are either engaged in aquaculture or interested in engaging in aquaculture. We're going to use what Caitlin learned to help develop some new grant competitions that specifically seek to enhance the relationships that exist in the Sea Grant network with nearby MSIs, as well as to help them reach out to MSIs, as I said, who don't currently have aquaculture programming available for their students, but who might be interested in adding it.

HOST: Oh, I love to hear that as a proud graduate of two HBCUs, and their marine science and natural sciences programs. I know that these grant competitions are going to give students at MSIs the support and opportunities that they deserve  – so I’ll be on the lookout for that from Sea Grant soon. So thank you for sharing that, I really appreciate it, Mark, and for mentioning the Knauss Fellowship. As a former Knauss fellow, the fellowship is a great way to get your feet wet in cutting-edge science and policy work, particularly in the area of aquaculture right now. We had a Knauss Fellow join us on last month’s episode of Planet NOAA to talk about her experience with the program, so be sure to check it out. I have another question for the group – it’s about awareness of aquaculture itself. Do you see any communities that are hesitant to consume those seafood products created via aquaculture? And how can we combat those fears and hesitations? 

SCHILLACI: I think there's different public perception challenges or opportunities based on what we're talking about farming. I think there's a lot of support for shellfish farming, oyster farming, clam farming. And in those cases, you know, they're pretty well integrated into our coastline across the US. There are often conflicts with space use. However, I think folks are seeing the benefits of shellfish and seaweed farming from, you know, habitat provisioning to water quality enhancement. And there's really growing support for that across coastal communities. There isn't a big footprint for finfish aquaculture in this country, although, globally, there is a considerable amount of finfish aquaculture, and that's where most of the fish we consume come from. Finfish has challenges in the form of a lot of outdated information or, you know, people's understanding of the regulatory system and the way finfish aquaculture occurs in other countries versus the way that it could and does occur in this country. We have really strenuous environmental laws in place to make sure that operations are sustainable. So, there's a lot of work we need to do to explain all of the hard work that goes into it, all of the oversight that goes into it, that ensures that what ends up on the plate from a US seafood farm, a US finfish farm, is sustainable, is healthy, and overall complements our larger seafood production.

RATH: I think there's two ways that we can tackle that question. I think the first is people are already eating aquaculture products, even if they don't realize that. You know, we import so much of our seafood from other parts of the world, and more than half of the seafood around the world is already produced by aquaculture. So it's already on our plates. But really the most powerful thing we can do, it's something we've been doing and continue to do, and that's to tell compelling and honest stories about what aquaculture really is today in the 21st century. And to talk about how it can help our health, help our economy, help our environment.

BLACKLOCK: So when folks are raised in the US, they know what a farm looks like. Everyone sort of pictures that red barn. And there are paintings in galleries all about what farming is in the United States. And we as a culture don't have that for aquaculture yet. Not knowing what a farm looks like sometimes can mean that you get a little bit nervous not knowing what is going to be put in front of your home. And I think that as aquaculture expands in the United States, we're going to build that comfort with…there's beauty there, local food is beautiful food, and being able to sustain your community and be part of the economic engine that sustains your school system and also feeds the local families is beautiful. Americans only eat about two thirds of the federal nutritional guidelines recommendation from USDA, and why that matters is that a diet rich in seafood is a diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids, and the health consequences of eating a diet rich in omega-3’s has been proven. We have a study from the Mayo Clinic that studied 250,000 patients that found a 37% reduction in fatal heart attacks if you eat a diet rich in seafood. The American Psychiatric Association endorses consuming omega-3 fatty acids in fish as an effective depression treatment, following a study that showed a 20% reduction in depression just by eating seafood. The power of seafood is so great that we can't ignore the sort of health benefits associated, in addition to those economic and planetary health aspects.

HOST: Thank you all. Let’s bring it back down to an individual level. What drew each of you to the field of aquaculture?

BLACKLOCK: Symone, I’m food-motivated. I like food and I like to cook. I put myself through school by cooking, and I also really think that finding sustainable foods is important. I studied marine biology and marine policy and that, married with my interest in food, sort of organically brought me into the aquaculture space. How do we grow food in the marine environment? How do we make sure that people have the ability to make sustainable food choices, and that we don't have a future where people are going hungry? I think that aquaculture is truly a part of our solution set to make sure that people have what they need in the future, and in the US, it gives us such an opportunity to let people eat local food, eat food grown by their neighbor. What a concept!

RATH: I can remember the classroom that I was sitting in at the University of South Carolina – go Gamecocks! – when I first heard the word aquaculture. I grew up in Kentucky; this was not something that was on my radar. But I was in college studying marine biology. And around the same time that I first heard that word, I recognized that I wasn't really ready to go to graduate school yet. I wanted to work and learn more in the real world. And those are the early days of the Internet. But there was a website called AquaNIC, and they had a job board, and I found a job on a tilapia farm out in California. And I packed up my bags and I moved out west, and I raised fish for a few years. And I absolutely loved it. It really clicked for me that this was something that was important for me, and I thought important for a lot of other people, but it's really, really hard. And I’ve sort of chosen to commit the rest of my career to making it less hard for other Americans to do this for a living.

SCHILLACI: Well, there's just the incredible food that comes from these farms. I love eating shellfish. I love eating fish. And, you know, I see US aquaculture as one of the most sustainable and delicious places to get these products. But, you know, really, this is a field that I'm able to support these incredibly dedicated farmers, food producers, folks that thrive on the water quality of the environment in which they do their work and really are looking for good managers, you know, a strong management structure that can help ensure the future of their business. You really meet great people. You meet people that are invested in the environment. You meet people that are invested in environmental outcomes, that are also producing just wonderful food products. 

MERCALDO-ALLEN: I came to the Milford Lab as a high school student and started to volunteer. At that time, we were doing aquaculture with the bay scallop and I was just enthralled. It has been a wonderful career. I've had 43 years now with NOAA and I've had the privilege of doing a lot of different kinds of work all around aquaculture. It's been like having a lot of many, many careers.

HOST: I love that, Renee.  I'm so happy to hear about the way you fell in love with aquaculture, and have continued to devote your time and careers to it. Thanks for joining us on Planet NOAA today.

[Did You NOAA theme music plays]

HOST: Welcome back, Tara. What can you tell us about how the NOAA aquaculture program has developed over time? What’s prompted scientists to get involved?

GARWOOD: As our aquaculture experts shared, our land-based resources are becoming limited over time, and farming in the ocean can help reduce some of that strain. And many of our researchers have a deeply personal connection to the field, too. Here’s what Michael Rust, former Science Advisor to the Office of Aquaculture, had to share with the NOAA Voices Oral History Archives as part of the Voices from the Science Centers collection: 

MICHAEL RUST: I was very interested in the ocean, but I was also interested in food. And I was also worried about some of these global things going on, and I guess I kind of got the idea that if anybody was to set off a nuclear weapon, it would be over food and it would be over hunger. So after 20 years or so of doing aquaculture research here, there was…and to kind of go back a little bit, aquaculture at the agency did not have a presence in Headquarters when I first started. Right now we get 98+% of our food, fiber and biofuel from agriculture, less than 2% from the ocean. We do that using about 40% of our land and 70% of our freshwater. The upside ability in our world of 9, 10 billion people for agriculture is…I mean, there is some upside, but it's maybe not as great as if you look at the ocean. Now, if you were to look at the ocean and extrapolate that, I mean, now we have 70% of the Earth's surface producing 1.6% or less than 2% of food, fiber and biofuel. So there's tremendous upside potential in the ocean. And in addition, we can do it in ways which add ecosystem services rather than causing ecosystem degradation. Fish, especially in the ocean environment, don't require freshwater; they don't require land; they don't require fertilizer inputs for things like seaweeds, shellfish. We have a dead zone right now in the Gulf of Mexico the size of the state of Connecticut. Well, what if we had an algae and a shellfish farm instead? We could eliminate the dead zone and provide literally tons and tons and tons of products for human consumption. Well, there's dead zones all around the world. Even if those were the only things we exploited, we could greatly increase our sustainability and our food security at the same time for marine aquaculture.

GARWOOD: As Michael mentioned, we’ve learned from aquaculture scientists that marine farming provides ecosystem services to surrounding waters. Michael also brings up seaweed farming. Did you NOAA that seaweeds suck up the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide out of the water around them to grow? You may remember our NOAA in the News correspondent, Tom DiLiberto, sharing that the ocean absorbs about a quarter of the carbon dioxide that is released by human activities like the burning of fossil fuels. The more carbon dioxide that the ocean takes on, the more acidic the water becomes. So, creating seaweed farms in the ocean not only benefits marine farmers and their communities, but it benefits the ocean, too, since that seaweed helps balance out those pH levels by sucking up carbon dioxide.

HOST: Two birds, one stone! We’ll be back with more from our NOAA Heritage correspondent right after this.

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HOST: Let’s visit the Leadership Corner. I’m here with Dr. Sarah Kapnick, our Chief Scientist, who advances policy and program direction for NOAA’s many areas of science and technology. She has extensive experience at the intersection of climate science and economics. Her previous work with NOAA touches nearly every facet of our agency, having served in multiple capacities with our Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, the Small Business Innovation Research Program, the Eastern Region Climate Team, our Climate.gov program, and as the NOAA team lead for the NASA High Mountain Asia Team. Dr. Kapnick, you have quite the portfolio – I’m really excited to dive in with you today! Welcome. 

DR. SARAH KAPNICK: Thank you. I'm so very excited to be here.

HOST: Dr. Kapnick, what exactly does serving as NOAA’s Chief Scientist entail? And what are your priorities within this role?

KAPNICK: Well, as NOAA Chief Scientist, I am the most senior scientist in our science agency. So in that role, I have to be thinking strategically about our science and technology, where it is today and where it's headed into the future. And in that we do a gap analysis. We look at the science where we are today, so we think about…where do we need to fund areas that are really important for the future that we're already working on. But then also where are the gaps? Where is the emerging science that we need to think about? I look at a lot of the cross-line office priorities, the science that needs to develop across different lines. But then how are we going to achieve new science and technology areas? So, for the last few years I've had many different types of science priorities. Some of them I've chosen and some of them have come up due to where we are. And they include water. As a hydroclimate scientist, I've always had water as one of my priorities, of thinking about the future of water, the future of forecasting, predictions and projections. But I also have as a priority, what is the future use of climate projections? How do we start operationalizing that use, particularly for thinking about climate risk and evolving climate risk, so we can build in resilience and adaptation? And then I had other priorities around marine carbon dioxide removal, solar radiation modification, or Earth's energy budget, and greenhouse gasses. 

HOST: That's reassuring to hear that agency priorities can shift over time depending on what’s going on in the world and what expertise you’re bringing to the role of Chief Scientist.

KAPNICK: Exactly. And coming back into the agency, having spent time on the outside, I was really able to see how the private sector was evolving in certain scientific research areas and interest in the research coming out of academia and government, and where investments were being made, which highlight to me also where government science needs to lead in these gaps. And so as Chief Scientist, I am able to have that strategic vision and sit back and observe the agency and determine where we need to be prioritizing now, or developing our priorities over the coming years to be able to meet those needs. 

HOST: Dr. Kapnick, you mentioned some of your previous work as a hydroclimate scientist. On that note, I’d like to talk a little bit about your time as a deputy division leader at our Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, or GFDL. How did your time at GFDL prepare you to take on the role of Chief Scientist? 

KAPNICK: GFDL gave me a really strong background in all the science that underpins NOAA. So GFDL’s portfolio is building global climate models and Earth system models to be able to understand what is happening on Earth. So those take the form of ocean models, of global coupled models that can be used to seasonal decadal prediction; also fundamental modeling that allows us to create the dynamics for weather models. My work when I was there was really around building the ultra high-resolution global climate models that we would use for seasonal decadal prediction. So it allowed me to understand, what are the sources of predictability in the Earth system from sub-seasonal, seasonal decadal timescales? But then also how do we build the models to answer the questions that we need to start answering around climate risk and the emergence of different phenomena with climate change? Working on all the different projects, like working with the Eastern Region Climate Team, taught me about climate services and how different people need climate information and the types of questions we would get. Like, we’d get questions of, “I need to rebuild my sewer with climate information. What information should I be using?” Or we would get questions from a state water manager saying, “What is the predictability of water a couple of months in advance for my region? Because we need to rebuild an aqueduct system.” Or, “We need to build and invest more in our reservoirs; how should we be managing them now or with the seasonal climate over the next few months? Or how should I be thinking about managing it in ten, twenty years because of climate change?” So, I was able to work with all these different groups that were consumers of our data and our information, and it helped shape the research that I conducted. But it also really highlighted for me the importance of the science, the data, the forecasts, the seasonal outlooks that we produce, and all of the planning that needs to take place around environmental information. 

HOST: Great to hear that your experience with GFDL is helping you make your mark as Chief Scientist. I want to look at the role of Chief Scientist through a historical lens for a moment – you’re the third female Chief Scientist in our agency’s history. Would you say you’ve felt supported as a woman in STEM throughout your career? And what about at NOAA specifically?

KAPNICK: So first, I have to say, I feel incredibly supported by the women who came before me. When I came in as Chief Scientist, I got the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Sylvia Earle, and she even made a joke to me. She was like, “I'm going to call you three.” And I didn't get it at first! She meant three, as in the third female Chief Scientist. And I would say that every Chief Scientist that we've had has had a different background and it's the background for the time. And so my background of climate and climate finance and economics is because we need to figure out how we're leveraging the information that we have into commercialization, to the future of the economy related to climate change, and the climate information and data that NOAA produces. To your question of have I always felt supported? I have had an amazing group of mentors and colleagues that I have pulled together, really strong women who have supported me throughout my career and have been people that I've gone to when I've had problems. But also, unfortunately, as a woman in science, I've dealt with a lot that other women have faced. I had harassment; I was constantly questioned at different points in my career about whether I knew what I was talking about in ways that my male colleagues were not, and it was hard. But it was the importance of those mentors that I had both above me, but then also my colleagues, my group of female friends that were also supportive of me when I needed help, and I would go to them and ask for advice, and they would support me in figuring out what to do when I faced those barriers as a woman in science. And they were really instrumental for keeping me in science, and also for helping me to continue on my path, which ultimately led me to be the Chief Scientist. 

HOST: Dr. Kapnick, thank you for sharing the importance of having community around you, and emphasizing how critical their support has been in keeping you connected to science; in keeping you motivated to continuing to do science. As we face so many different types of barriers to inclusion in science – and that could be discrimination or harassment or unfair pushback, like you talked about – you might not want to stay in this field. And I’ve had those same sentiments; I’ve felt that same way. And it’s really difficult when, as a scientist, you’re really passionate about the work that you do, but you feel like, maybe this isn’t the right place for me; maybe I should make a change because I don’t feel comfortable. But you also realize, hey, I have to choose myself; I have to do what’s best for me so that I can also be happy in the work that I’m doing. I’m appreciative of hearing that you have support, that you have community around you that has helped to ground you when you were facing those different trials and tribulations. That’s a critical way, I think, to make sure that you can be retained within this field is to make sure that you have folks around you who support you. 

KAPNICK: Yeah. And it is so important to find your community. And I would also want to add that your community isn't necessarily physically co-located with you. And that has been so important for me. When I was at GFDL and there were very few women alongside me, or even above me – when I became Deputy Division Leader, I was the first cohort of women; two of us were put in deputy division leadership roles, one was put in a leadership role, and there had never been a woman leader before that. And so my leader and mentors and my colleagues that supported me weren't necessarily alongside of me at GFDL. They were across different academic institutions. Some of them were even in the private sector. And many of us, when we have a problem or issue that we're facing, we will text a group text chain of a bunch of us and seek help from the others, or hop on a phone call and get advice. And so that community doesn't necessarily have to be in the place where you're located, but it's so important to find it.

HOST: Yes, thank you again for sharing that, Dr. Kapnick. Speaking of the private sector, I want to shift to the connection between climate science and economics that I continuously see emphasized within your work – and, as you mentioned earlier, is definitely the right fit for the time as we work to combat the effects of climate change. How did you find yourself at this intersection? And broadly, what’s the economic case for building climate resilience?

KAPNICK: This is over 20 years ago; I realized that there was an intersection between the two that I thought would occur as climate impacts started to be felt. They would be financial impacts, and that we would need to understand both finance and climate, to understand how to invest appropriately to build resilience and adaptation, as well as to try and deal with the climate problem through climate mitigation. And so I come into this role bringing with me an understanding of finance, an understanding of how one quantifies climate risk around how you use climate information to understand what the future looks like based on physics, and what that means then for how one invests, and what types of solutions and technologies we need to be able to make those types of decisions. And so I brought all of this into the role as Chief Scientist, and have worked closely with our financial and economic agency partners from the Council of Economic Advisers, the National Economic Council, the Treasury, OMB. We've been working on various issues around how do you quantify climate risk, how do you build future forecasts for budget of the government, as well as how do we create macroeconomic policy and understanding as it relates to climate change? 

HOST: Thanks, Dr. Kapnick. I want to take a look at another interesting intersection in your work. Now, you mentioned that water was one of your top priorities as Chief Scientist. At the UN Water Conference, you led the NOAA delegation to raise issues at the intersection of water, climate, ecosystem health, and the ocean, joining the ranks of women in water diplomacy. What do you see as the major challenges in water?

KAPNICK: Water is an emerging issue, not only just on its own as a critical resource that everyone needs to survive, but also as one that is greatly changed due to climate change. From NOAA, we are explaining the importance of forecasts and seasonal predictions to be able to understand how much water is available in the coming hours to months, and to be able to reduce the impact of potential extreme events. We were also discussing the importance of infrastructure development because of climate change and climate projections, to know what is expected in the coming decades, to be able to plan now for water supplies and water variability. And so we were there representing the science and technology of NOAA and how it's critical to have that information to do all of that planning across various time scales. 

HOST: I think a lot of us take water for granted – and we need to keep in mind that the quality and quantity of water changes  over time, and especially so with climate change. Now, Dr. Kapnick, level with me for a sec. What keeps you up at night? 

KAPNICK: Am I doing enough to make sure that we get the science and technology into the hands of people that need it? And are we thinking really strategically about focusing our efforts on refining those issues and ensuring that research and development is taking place that we will need for the future? 

HOST: Definitely hear that. Is there anything else you’d like to share with us today before we wrap?

KAPNICK: To close, I want to close on kind of a couple of things that we went over about the importance of mentorship and the inspiration that I get when I go across the country. You know, NOAA, the science that we do, the technology that we're producing is cutting-edge, and it's what society needs. And we come to this challenge every single day with what we're producing. And I just want to remind our staff and our partners out there that the collaborations and the cross-collaborations that we're doing, and the intersection of different science areas, is where there's a lot of innovation taking place across the entire agency. And I'm just really excited to see what will happen in the coming months and years as more work takes place. And just remember to do those collaborations and to mentor each other, particularly as people are coming out of COVID and going out into the world again and forming those relationships. So keep doing so and press on.

HOST: We love to see it. Dr. Kapnick, thanks for being here today.

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HOST: Tara, the field of aquaculture has grown pretty dramatically since the National Aquaculture Act of 1980 was passed. So, from a historical perspective, what’s changed? 

GARWOOD: Well, now that a lot of the tools and tech we need to grow aquaculture around the nation are in place, NOAA is broadening its focus to remove barriers from the development of sustainable aquaculture for domestic seafood production. Hands-on collaboration with marine farmers and local harvesters is a crucial part of this process. Here’s what Gary Wikfors, Director of Milford Lab and Branch Chief of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center Aquaculture Sustainability Branch – whew, that’s a mouthful! – shared on the subject:

GARY WIKFORS: You know, I think we're really in a good place as far as shellfish aquaculture is concerned, because it's been shown to restore ecosystems by restoring the function of oysters or mussels or something. And it's, you know, good for the economy. It's a good thing people can do. And actually, we're in the forefront of describing and quantifying some of the ecosystem services of shellfish aquaculture. You know, more recently we've moved to this all-aspects of carrying capacity and ecosystem services of shellfish and what one of those ecosystem services is, you know, intensive mussel or oyster aquaculture clears the water of algae. First of all, it makes it clear. That's a great thing. It's good for recreational fishing. And there's all these social benefits all of a sudden to having an oyster farm in your bay. Our main mission now is removing barriers from the development of sustainable aquaculture for domestic seafood production. And that doesn't just involve playing in the sink, little beakers of oyster larvae and so on. We do some of that still. There's still some problems that can be solved that way. But we need to be in the environment, because if there's no knowledge concerning the possible environmental effects of an aquaculture practice, the default is to say no, to not allow it to happen. So we need to go in the environment and look at the interactions of aquaculture practices. They have to be good for the…sustainable for the animals that are being cultivated. They have to be sustainable financially for the aquaculturists. And they need to be sustainable socially. And people need to feel confident that what those people are being allowed to do out in my bay or out off my point, something, is not harmful or not unfair in some way. If you're going to evaluate an aquaculture practice, you can either create a facsimile of it yourself, or you can go to a real farm where it's really being done the way they do it, and, you know, and you don't have to guess. And so that's what we've been doing for the last ten years, is collaborating with those people on that. But there's no stronger connection. I'm working on that guy's farm. I see him every day and I…we really get to know each other. We get to know what they’re doing and all the conversation that happens includes transferring scientific knowledge, you know. And we're breaking down a lot of those barriers. And I have to say that there's been a double digit increase in oyster farming, in the landings and in the value every year for the last 7 or 8 years. That means a lot of new people coming in. And so anyway, it's a good feeling for a young person to say I'm, you know, part of the solution to, you know, the pollution and destruction and all the bad things that people do. And, when you're in an aquaculture mode, it's actively doing something. Only instead of saying, we have to stop doing this, we have to stop doing everything that people do…this is something we can start doing…we do more of.

HOST: I really love Gary’s glass-half-full collaborative approach. Change isn’t accomplished alone – it starts with teamwork. 

GARWOOD: Absolutely. And NOAA offers all kinds of grant programs and funding opportunities to kickstart that collaboration. There’s funding opportunities available for areas like environmental monitoring, shellfish farming, new species research, and offshore aquaculture, to name a few. You can visit fisheries.noaa.gov/aquaculture to explore more.

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HOST: Thanks for joining us on Planet NOAA, where we prepare people for tomorrow’s planet, today. Ever wonder how you’re able to know where you are in reference to the land around you? How we record how high the mountains and hills are, and how they change over time? How can you define what intersecting point of latitude and longitude you’re on right now? Tune in next month to learn more about charting, geodesy, and positioning, or catch up on episodes anytime on your podcast player of choice.