Life cycle assessment (LCA) of an indoor pilot aquaponics production facility in Belgium

Aquaponics arouses a growing interest as a sustainable way to produce fish and vegetables in an integrated system. The main advantages of aquaponics production are water saving and reduced sewage that can be achieved through nutrient cycling. On the other side, several challenges raised from this method as it is energy demanding and often provides sub-optimal growing conditions for fish and/or vegetables in coupled systems (Junge et al., 2017). Sustainability of such systems must be assessed through a global approach taking into account not only the production processes but encompassing also upstream (structure and equipment) and downstream (product distribution and by-product valorisation) impacts. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a method that can be used to investigate the sustainability of production systems such as aquaponics. We performed a full analysis of an aquaponics pilot system built in Belgium in 2017. The LCA covers the infrastructure construction, presently completed, and a prediction of system running based on a production model.