Final Report Summary - PASSA (Partnerships for Sustainable Shrimp Aquaculture) Aquaculture effluents represent a main environmental concern because of their high polluting potential. While fish farms of advanced countries adopt a medium/high-tech approach to this issue, less industrialised countries rely on low-tech systems, if any. Shrimp culture is an important economic sector in which Asian countries are the main producers/exporters and industrialised countries are the main importers/consumers. Asian aquaculture makes up almost 80% of world shrimp (P. monodon and P. vannamei) production. As most of the shrimp farms have serious negative impacts on environment caused by waste effluents containing pollutants, one of the main needs of Asian shrimp culture is the implementation of advanced effluent management systems which can burst the rearing efficiency up to manifold increase of production, reducing the environmental impact. On the other hand, EU aquaculture, which possesses a large know-how on intensive fish farming, lacks of intensive shrimp culture plants. A further problem in intensive shrimp culture is the lack of artificial feed specifically formulated for shrimp feeding, a situation which derives from the very limited knowledge of shrimp absorptive and digestive physiology. Thanks to the present project, a complementary cross-exchange of their know-how and competencies in the field of shrimp culture and shrimp physiology between EU and Indian researchers was developed. The cooperation between EU and Indian researchers aimed to: (i) spread knowledge and give awareness about the implementation of cost-effective systems for the treatment of shrimp farm effluent to reduce the environmental impact of commercial shrimp culture; (ii) suggest and support the implementation of closed systems for the reproduction and growth of new shrimp species (P. monodon and P. vannamei) suitable for intensive rearing in shrimp culture; (iii) understand some of the still unknown aspects of the digestive physiology of shrimp finalised to the formulation of efficient, environmentally safe artificial feed for shrimp feeding. Available systems and applicable technology have been considered for application and their efficiency to prevent recipient ecosystem pollution has been verified and monitored through analytic characterisation of water, waste and the recipient ecosystems. Specific dissemination and training actions allowed to extend the knowledge to researchers, operators and policy makers of India and EU. Eight workshops and four training sessions have been accomplished in India and in Italy, allowing the exchange of lot of relevant knowledge on aquaculture, shrimp farming, waste water management and shrimp biology between Indian and EU scientists. The same events allowed the dissemination of relevant knowledge on the same topics to many stakeholders of the shrimp farming sector. The experimental work carried out at Indian and EU partners laboratories and aquaculture farms allowed the preparation of a report on principles and methods for solids and nutrient management in waste water from shrimp aquaculture plants and the design of a pilot plant for closed-circulation shrimp rearing. At the same time, a large data set of ecological, physical, chemical, physiological, anatomical and socio-economical parameters related to shrimp farming has been collected. Among these dataset, new knowledge on shrimp digestive mechanisms has been obtained and reported to the international scientific community.The contribution of the project to the improvement of the socio-economic and environmental aspects of extensive, traditional shrimp farming through the adoptions of modern principles and technologies for water remediation and intensive rearing has been immediately verified by the implementation of these concepts in several shrimp farm and other water consuming activities in India.
