The Sustainability of Fishery and the Aquacultural Sector

Dear Colleagues,

The market demand for fish has risen over the last two decades and has been mostly satisfied by wild-captured fish. However, wild captures are close to the maximum sustainable supply, and this calls for industry, practitioners, and scholars to develop new sustainable methods, techniques, and systems to meet market demand for fish. Aquaculture is developing as an alternative source to wild-captured fish, whose market performance is improving. The EU aquaculture sector reached 1.4 million tons in sales volume and EUR 4.9 billion in sales value in 2016. For the development of the aquacultural sector that satisfies the market demand for fish, sustainable fish production, and guaranteed income for fishers and entrepreneurs, many challenges need to be overcome—the weak and fragmented market structure of aquacultural farms; the competition and conflicts inside fishing and aquacultural factories (e.g., large-scale fisheries/aquacultural factories vs. small-scale fishing/aquacultural factories) and toward non-fishing sectors (e.g., other industries, tourism); weak governance and lack of synergy; weak stakeholder participation in decision-making and difficulty in adopting innovation; climate change; the rise of consumer interest in innovative products with high quality and service content and additional information on the product, such as safety guarantee and quality marks. Besides this, aquaculture itself needs to implement sustainable production methods as it can impact the environment, such as through the problem of fish meal for feed produced by natural fish; fish diseases, drugs, and drug-resistant bacteria development; water and/or sediment contamination of the aquaculture field management.

Thus, this Special Issue encourages researchers, practitioners, companies, and institutions from different geographical areas to exchange knowledge, practices, and rules for sustainable development of the aquaculture sector, adding value to the product, supporting local development respecting the environment, and not depleting natural resources.

This Sustainability Special Issue calls for papers documenting the nutritional value of fish, as well as the economic importance of supplying the consumer's demand for fish without depleting natural resources through sustainable fishery and aquaculture.

We welcome different types of manuscript submissions, including original research articles and up-to-date reviews (systematic reviews and meta-analyses).

Potential topics may include, but are not limited to, the documentation of the environmental impact of the multiple farmed fish systems as well as of the entire fish supply chain across different geographical areas; the importance of fish products for local economic development; marine fish depletion and sustainable captures to ensure adequate quantity/quality of fish to consumers; sustainable management practices aimed to increase the nutritional quality/quantity of fish as well as to increase the economic suitability of the sector; consumer preferences for fishery and aquaculture products with environmental certified schemes; innovative management practices ensuring the quality of products and rise in producer income.

Prof. Rosaria Viscecchia
Prof. Biagia De Devitiis
Dr. Francesco Bimbo
Prof. Rocco Roma
Prof. Annalisa De Boni
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.