Our 7th EAStalk will be presented by Åsa Espmark, Centre Director of CtrlAQUA (SFI) and Senior Scientist in Nofima, on March 3rd at 14:00 (CET time). Åsa will give a presentation on 'CtrlAqua: Contribution to future aquaculture'.
For the last 17 years, Dr. Åsa Maria Espmark has focused her work on fish welfare, welfare indicators, and stress, mainly on farmed Atlantic salmon, but also in the cleaner fish species, Ballan wrasse and lumpfish.
In recent years, the focus has also been on new farming technologies and the interaction between technology and biology. Espmark coordinated the FP7 OrAqua project, and now the H2020 FutureEUAqua project.
She had the great pleasure to be WP leader and to participate in FP7 AQUAEXCEL, AQUAEXCEL2020 and now the new H2020 AQUAEXCEL 3.
Since October 2017, Espmark has worked as the center director for CtrlAQUA SFI. CtrlAQUA is a center for research-driven innovation, supported by the Research Council of Norway and aims to develop technological and biological innovations that will make closed containment systems a reliable and economically viable technology for post-smolt.
CtrlAQUA is an SFI (centre for research driven innovation) that has been given eight years to contribute to the development of closed (RAS) and semi-closed containment (S-CCS) aquaculture. CtrlAQUA shall develop technological and biological innovations to make closed containments a reliable and economic sustainable technology, and contribute with knowledge transfer and innovations within the research fields Technology and Environment, Production and Welfare, and Preventive Fish Health. In focus is the post-smolt, since this is a sensitive life stage for the salmon in which their health and welfare are highly dependent on optimal environment and treatment. The centre goals are achieved with joint forces between seven R&D institutions, and thirteen industry partners representing fish farmers, suppliers and biotechnology companies, in addition to an impressive amount of master - and doctoral students.
Among research questions that CtrlAQUA is working with are to facilitate innovation of CCS technology, hydrodynamics, water treatment processes, and sensors, to achieve a high level of production control. Further, we are working to identify physiological and environmental requirements for post-smolts in CCS, optimize environmental parameters, innovate new welfare and robustness indicators and maximize output from each CCS platform without compromising welfare and robustness.
Finally, we are working towards innovations to prevent, detect and control disease in closed production systems, strengthen the fish's robustness and disease resistance with focus on barrier functions and cardiovascular capacity, strengthen pathogen control and management of disease outbreaks in CCS, and developing new or improved vaccines and protocols for pathogens that represent a particular threat in CCS.
Visit CtrlAQUA website here.
Video is available under the members section/EAStalk webinar/video.