Why use buildings in Aquaculture Engineering?

Why use buildings?

Buildings or superstructure are used in aquaculture for several reasons. It will shelter the production facilities from environmental factors such as wind, sun, rain or snow and the working environment for the farmers will be improved. It also makes possible photomanipulation of the grown organisms, which is an important part of optimizing the farming conditions for different species, especially in the fry and juvenile stages and during maturation.

The buildings or superstructure can be used to cover the entire farm, part of the farm, or only the production units. Buildings are used mostly on land-based fish farms; on sea-based farms they can be used for protection of feed storage on a barge and for housing the mess room and WC. In a land-based farm there will always be a building housing the toilet, mess room and office; it might, however, be an integral part of a larger building that also covers the production area.

Building design and construction is a large specialist field and here only a very brief survey is given with special attention to aquaculture facilities. Many textbooks are available on the subject; .