About
Support for the Development of AquaModel
Two agencies of the United States Government have provided partial funding for the development of AquaModel. Below is a summary of what was accomplished by these projects. To view the complete description and results, click on the headings.
Aquaculture Site Selection
An Ecosystem Approach
Award Number: NA08OAR4170859
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) provided funding for:
- Developing an interface between AquaModel and 3 dimensional coastal circulation models.
- Developing a far-field version of AquaModel that simulates the water column effects of multiple farms over large regions.
- Testing the enhanced model in two regions where oceanographic conditions are well known but differ greatly:
- The San Diego Southern California Bight
- The University of New Hampshire Open Ocean Aquaculture Site in the Gulf of Maine
- Conducting sensitivity analyses to determine the most important parameters in determining the environmental impact of a site.
Software for Sustainable Development
of Open Ocean Fish Farms
Agreement No. 2007-33610-18532
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) through its Small Business Innovation Research Program provided funding to expand AquaModel in the following ways:
- Displaying detailed bathymetry
- Linking to outputs from additional coastal flow models
- Providing a more advanced visualization of entire coastline
- Providing additional contouring and statistics capabilities
- Accelerating simulations of the impact of sediment waste deposition in waters where waste accumulation and the response of the benthic community are slow
- Enhancing modeled benthic dynamics
- Calibrating the model by growing fish in a laboratory
- Developing of a Mariculture Information System for Hawai'i