Site selection is a critical process for every new farm. For open ocean farms, this early planning step is more complex due to the stronger forces encountered in these environments, the high upfront capital costs, and the relative novelty of these environments for farming. The process is further complicated by the trend of siting open ocean farms in data sparce environments with fewer neighbouring farms or other ocean users to supplement data.
However, site selection studies have been conducted in geographies all over the world and for multiple species and offer examples and insights that can be applied to new studies. This presentation will cover Innovasea’s process for identifying the most ideal location for a successful farm through remote geospatial analysis, on-location data collection, data analysis, and the decision-making process.