Identification of indicators for the sustainable development of finfish aquaculture in Izmir

Aquaculture has been growing quickly in the recent years in the world and in our country. As in every production branch, negative environment pressure also emerged on aquaculture production and worrying effects has been appearing on the environment. Therefore sustainable aquaculture issue came up and research has been done on this issue. Sustainability is addressed as economic, environmental and social dimensions. In terms of twenty eleven data, Izmir is ranked second in Turkish marine aquaculture with fourty two companies and twenty three thousand and three hundred tons production. In this research economic, environmental and social dimensions have been examined to identify sustainable production indicators in Izmir. For every dimension principals, criteria and indicators have been identified. Survey questionnaires were created and applied on thirty three farms. In the surveys, for every dimension a total of nine principals, fourty criteria and seventy indicators were applied. Every indicator was ranked by producers on scale of one to nine. The mean is obtained for each indicator by examining the score given by each farmer. The arithmetic means of the sustainability indicators are grouped as nine ? eight; excellent, seven ? six; very good, five ? four; good, four ? three acceptable; two ?one weak. The findings in the economic dimension placed, "Food Conversion Rate"; "existence of a farm health management system"; "application of legislation on biological waste disposal"; "feed cost/kg of fish produced", in the first four. In the environmental dimension "water flow"; "use of certified fish food"; "total organic carbon"; "Food Conversion Ratio" ranked highest. In the social dimension "year-round production"; "local market"; "level of expertise" and "effective participation in the decision making process" were considered to be the key indicators for sustainability. These indicators are intended to be used in sustainable aquaculture management.