The University of Maine is to receive a $20m grant to establish a Sustainable Ecological Aquaculture Network (SEANET) program in Maine.
The National Science Foundation EPSCoR (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) grant will be used to mobilise the collective capacity of Maine’s coastal science resources to establish a research network focused on sustainable ecological aquaculture.
This multi-institutional, public-private partnership led by UMaine, in collaboration with the University of New England and other institutions in Maine, will use the state’s 3,500-mile coastline as a living laboratory to study physical oceanography, biophysical, biogeochemical, socioeconomic and policy interactions that have local, bioregional, national and global implications.
The SEANET research program will utilise the field of sustainability science to understand the social and environmental connections, and feedback loops among sustainable ecological aquaculture and coastal communities and coastal ecosystems.
“This research project will use various types of science to understand how aquaculture fits in our multi-use working waterfront, while building partnerships and training students, so that we can use similar approaches to other coastal resource management issues in the future.” said Paul Anderson, director of SEANET at the University of Maine.
