Harmful algae blooms present an ongoing challenge on aquaculture farms due to their complex and unpredictable nature. The impacts of climate can lead to more intense algae blooms, and this presents operational challenges that farmers must navigate to protect their livestock that must be overcome to ensure they are achieving more efficient and sustainable production cycles.
The complex nature of the effects of different groups of phytoplankton means that producers must be able track and analyze trends at the species level. Producers must therefore be diligent in their data collection and management strategies both for the real time care of their fish and in the analysis of changes over time.
A data management and visualization system specifically for aquaculture farmers helps derive educated insights from the environmental and water quality data that farms collect. This helps farmers to discover species-specific trends, explore the relationship between environmental data and algae concentrations and discover environmental trends like water currents that might carry species between farms. Sophisticated, map-based visualization software is intuitive and data analytics can lead to forecasting trends and predictions in the future which can help farmers better manage plankton issues on farms.