Implementation of information and communication technologies to increase sustainable productivity in freshwater finfish aquaculture – A review

Abstract

The practice of continental aquaculture has grown globally, mainly due to its ability to provide protein to vulnerable populations and stimulate local economies in many regions of the world. In recent years, information and communication technologies (ICT) have been implemented to monitor, control, correct and even predict the behavior of critical parameters in fish farms to obtain sustainable productivity. A systematic literature review (SLR) was applied to identify the main variables contributing to the increase in sustainable productivity in freshwater aquaculture and the most used ICT tools to monitor or control these variables. It was found that aquaculture uses IoT and AI mainly on five fronts: water quality, fish feeding, water recirculation, fish transport and traceability, and fish welfare. The use of ICT tools in aquaculture has evolved from the use of simple sensors to the construction of predictive models using deep learning. However, it is worth highlighting the few articles that evaluate the impact of ICT tools on the productivity metrics of a freshwater fish farm under real conditions, and the information presented in the reviewed literature is difficult to compare due to the lack of uniformity in aquaculture projects where ICT tools are applied.