Marine aquaculture (mariculture) currently comprises a relatively small fraction of domestic seafood production in the United States, but it is widely seen as having significant potential for expansion. Most existing mariculture in the U.S. takes place in state waters under state-level jurisdiction, and yet much of the current dialogue on sustainable marine aquaculture development is targeted at the federal level. State-level mariculture management is diverse, resulting in a patchwork of regulating and enabling policy along with uneven reporting of mariculture production. Guiding sustainable development of this industry requires a much better understanding of its current status - including more consistent value and production data and a richer understanding of state-level policy.
We embarked on two parallel but complimentary projects focused on 1) U.S. state-level mariculture policy and 2) U.S. state-level mariculture production data. For the policy work , we compiled information for 16 aquaculture and mariculture policy attributes, including legislation, regulations, and management characteristics, particularly those that could enable mariculture development. We also calculated an overarching enabling policy score for each state based on these characteristics (Fig. 1). We found considerable variation in the way that states manage mariculture development, indicating that there are a suite of approaches that may be influential in enabling sustainable development. With regards to mariculture production data, we aggregated publicly available data from USDA and NOAA along with data solicited from state agencies, in order to synthesize and compare value, volume, and species data for each state across time. We found strong evidence that mariculture is playing an increasingly important role in coastal states, but also uncovered many data gaps and inconsistencies in current data collection sources. We suggest that a standardized digital reporting system and annual data collection would allow for improved strategic aquaculture planning, research, and management. These two complementary projects each provide first of their kind syntheses of key information that is essential for managing a sustainable industry into the future.