“Tools for the Assessment and Planning of Aquaculture Sustainability”

TAPAS is a Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Action funded by the European Commission (Grant agreement Nº 678396). The full title and main objective of the project is the development of  “Tools for the Assessment and Planning of Aquaculture Sustainability”. The project, in which IMDEA Water participates, is formed by 15 partners from 10 European countries.  It began in March 2016 and will last for 4 years.

Aquaculture is one of the five sectors in the EU’s Blue Growth Strategy, which is aimed at harnessing untapped potential for food production and jobs whilst focusing on environmental sustainability. The TAPAS project aims to consolidate the environmental sustainability of European aquaculture by developing tools, approaches and frameworks to support EU Member States in establishing a coherent and efficient regulatory framework for aquaculture development in the future.

The specific research objectives are:

• To identify sustainability requirements and licensing approaches, and identify bottlenecks hampering cost-efficient licensing and regulatory practices.
• To identify the gap between the availability of and needs for the suitable tools, methods and frameworks.
• To critically analyse and refine existing tools and technologies.
• To assess the environmental services provided by European aquaculture.
• To strengthen management practices and develop cost-efficient management tools.
• To develop an Aquaculture Sustainability Toolkit based on existing and newly developed models and approaches for timely and cost-efficient environmental assessment and regulation.

The Ecotoxicology group of IMDEA Water will be involved in the development of environmental models and standards for the risk assessment of potentially toxic substances used in EU aquaculture such as antibiotics and parasiticides.