Determination of new potential sites for sustainable aquaculture in net cages in the Eastern Black Sea

This study was carried out to analyse the current aquaculture activities in the Eastern Black Sea and its interaction with small-scale fishing, identifying potential aquaculture areas and estimating the effect of new mariculture area allocations on sustainable mariculture production. By using two questionnaries, the required data were obtained from 189 small-scale fishermen and 10 farm owners. In order to determine the interaction of small-scale fisheries with sea cage farming, which have become widespread in the last 20 years, analyzes were carried out on the economic data of two groups of coastal fishermen: fishermen close to the cages and fishermen far away from the cages. According to the analysis, there is no statistical difference between the fishing income, gross profit and total income of fishermen located close to and far from the cages. This indicates that cage farming do not negatively affect small-scale fishermen. In the study, 141 potential sea cage areas corresponding to a total area of 13.5 million m2 were determined. In addition, with the analysis made on the allocated capacity and actual production amount data in the region; It is predicted that 121,042 tons per year of fish could be produced in the marine environment in the Black Sea within 10 years, by the allocation of new production sites according to the present trends in aquaculture industry in the region.