Sustainability of Karacaören-I Dam Lake Rainbow Trout Cage Farming (Türkiye) in Terms of Cultural Energy and Carbon Footprint Expended on Compound Diet and Transportation

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the consumed compound diet and juvenile fish, harvested fish, and compound diet transport of Karacaören Dam Lake-I rainbow trout cage farming (KRTC) in terms of cultural energy (CE) and carbon footprint (CF) expended sustainability. Data was collected through face-to-face interviews with the farmers. Cultural energy and carbon footprint were calculated with the data obtained from the literature. The lowest and highest FCRs in KRTC were 0.91 and 1.18, the closest and farthest distances related to transportation were 387 and 427 km for aquafeed factories, 7 and 650 km for hatcheries, and 67 and 450 km for processing factories. Cultural energy and carbon footprint expended on consumed compound diet (CECD-Gcal and Mcal kg-1, and CFCD-tonne CO2e and kg CO2e kg-1) and cultural energy and carbon footprint expended on transportation analyzes (CET-Gcal and Mcal kg-1, and CFT-tonne CO2e and kg CO2e kg-1) were performed according to the literature of 20-40 g fish stocked in the beginning of November 2020 and 270-500 g harvested until early June 2021 in the basin. In the access of sustainability, the CE (Mcal kg-1) and CF (CO2e kg-1) expended values in kg of the harvested fish were given. The average values of CE expended of 5 different aquafeed groups used in the basin were 3.65, 3.58, 3.41, 3.25, and 3.55 Mcal kg-1, respectively and the average values of CF expended were 1.05, 1.03, 1.14, 1.40, and 1.10 kg CO2e kg-1, respectively. The average share of CE and CF in the compound diet was 86.59% and 86.61%, respectively. The KRTC sustainability criterion for compound diet and transportation values was 2.9260 CE:CF. It is recommended to develop a sustainability index of aquaculture systems and species-specific CE and CF expended values.