New research just published in Nature Sustainability shows that expanding global seaweed farming could go a long way to addressing the planet’s food security, biodiversity loss, and climate change challenges.

Scott Spillias from the University of Queensland’s School of Earth and Environmental Science, collaborated with researchers from the University of Queensland, IIASA, CSIRO, and the University of Tasmania to investigate whether seaweed offered a sustainable alternative to land-based agricultural expansion to meet the world’s growing need for food and materials. Spillias started this work as part of his IIASA Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP) project when he participated in the program in the summer of 2021.

“Seaweed has great commercial and environmental potential as a nutritious food and a building block for commercial products including animal feed, plastics, fibers, diesel and ethanol,” he explains. “Our study found that expanding seaweed farming could help reduce demand for crops on land and reduce global agricultural greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by up to 2.6 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent per year.”

The researchers mapped the potential of farming more of the 34 commercially important seaweed species using the IIASA Global Biosphere Management Model (GLOBIOM). They estimated the environmental benefits of a range of scenarios based on land-use changes, GHG emissions, water and fertilizer use, and projected changes in species presence by 2050.

“In one scenario where we substituted 10% of human diets globally with seaweed products, the development of 110 million hectares of land for farming could be prevented,” Spillias says. “We also identified millions of available hectares of ocean within global exclusive economic zones (EEZs) – in other words, an area of the sea in which a sovereign state has special rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources, including energy production from water and wind – where farming could be developed.”

The largest share of suitable ocean was in the Indonesian EEZ, where up to 114 million hectares is estimated to be suitable for seaweed farming. The Australian EEZ also shows great potential and species diversity, with at least 22 commercially viable species and an estimated 75 million hectares of ocean being suitable.

Spillias further said that many native species of seaweed in Australian waters had not yet been studied from a commercial production perspective.

“The way I like to look at this is to think about ancestral versions of everyday crops – like corn and wheat, which were uninspiring, weedy things,” he notes. “Through thousands of years of breeding we have developed the staple crops that underpin modern societies and seaweed could very well hold similar potential in the future.”

“This study uniquely highlights the need for integrated strategies bringing together terrestrial and marine ecosystems management to address some of the mounting problems of global sustainability facing us, as well as to avoid displacing problems from the land to the ocean, and vice versa,” concludes Petr Havlík, Interim Director of the IIASA Biodiversity and Natural Resources Program.

Adapted from a press release prepared by the University of Queensland.

Reference

Spillias, S., Valin, H., Batka, M., Sperling, F., Havlík, P., Leclère, D., Cottrell, R.S., O’Brien, K.R., McDonald-Madden, E. (2022). Reducing global land-use pressures with seaweed farming. Nature Sustainability DOI: 10.1038/s41893-022-01043-y

News

Israel on blue digital planet Earth with network.

08 March 2024

The Archimedes Center: advancing systems analysis in Israel

In 2023, IIASA collaborated with Tel Aviv University and the Israeli Ministry of Innovation, Science, and Technology, to set up a new national research center focusing on a broad set of scientific fields related to systems analysis in Israel.
Trophy

09 February 2024

Awards for outstanding early-career scientists

Four exceptional young scientists from the 2023 Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP) have been recognized for their research efforts this past summer. Three will receive funding to continue their research projects at IIASA and one candidate has been given an Honorable Mention for outstanding effort.
Reduce CO2 emission concept with green background and icons depicting ways to help reduce carbon dioxide in the air.

22 November 2023

New research exemplifies collaboration between IIASA and EAP

IIASA and the University of Wisconsin Madison's Energy, Analysis, and Policy (EAP) Program have a history of collaborating on impactful research and formalized their partnership in 2022 thanks in part to a generous donation from Wes and Ankie Foell. Wes Foell, EAP co-founder, completed modeling work for IIASA in the 1970’s, and hopes to see the collaboration continue to grow.