A Definition of Aquaculture Intensity Based on Production Functions—The Aquaculture Production Intensity Scale (APIS)

Abstract

Aquaculture intensity has been used for years as a means to gauge how much production a site makes using three terms: extensive, semi-intensive and intensive aquaculture production systems. The industry has a relatively coordinated understanding of these terms, but an explicit general definition does not seem to exist. This paper aims to use three kinds of production function groups; the input, treatment and output functions to describe and define the terms extensive, semi-intensive and intensive explicitly. This is done with extensive literature review to find the meaning of the terms. The terms are then mapped onto the three production function groups. The resulting framework accomplishes two things. Firstly, it defines extensive, semi-intensive and intensive aquaculture in terms of production functions. Secondly, it creates an eight level scale, the aquaculture production intensity scale (APIS), that provides three levels of extensive systems, two level of semi-intensive systems and three level of intensive systems. APIS allows mapping of all uses of the terms in current literature to an APIS score, though some results might differ from current usage.