1. business and industrial
2. agriculture and forestry
3. aquaculture

 From
its beginning in the 1920’s, aquaculture in
Malaysia has developed quickly and is now an
important activity.
 With long coastlines, vast expanses of coastal
belt, inland areas, and water bodies suitable for
aquaculture development, aquaculture provides
the best avenue of increasing local production
for food security and increasing export
revenues.
 The shrimp aquaculture has great economic and
social importance, and also reduce pressure on
overexploited wild stocks.
Various culture systems:
 Mud flat culture
 Freshwater pond culture
 Brackish water pond culture
 Long-line culture of seaweed
 Marine cage culture of fish
 Raft culture of mussel and oyster
 Mining pool culture of freshwater fishes
 Freshwater cage culture
 Tank culture of freshwater fishes (FAO, 2014)
• Marine shrimp trapping ponds were first developed
1930’s in Johore
• Semi-intensive culture of shrimp was developed in
1970’s Johore
• The whiteleg shrimp, Penaeus vannamei, began
production when the marine shrimp production
2001’s showed a sharp increase of almost 70%
• The aquaculture sector recorded an annual growth
rate of about 10%, mainly the cultures in shrimp,
2014’s marine fish and high value freshwater fish
There are significant differences between and
within countries regarding the levels of production
intensity and yields, farm numbers and their sizes,
and the various types of resources utilized.
 Shrimp farms are classified into:

Extensive
- low stocking
densities
- little/no external
nutritional inputs
-tidal water
exchange
-shrimp yields of
less than 500
kg/ha/yr
Semi-intensive
- using fertilizers
& supplemental
feeding
- intermediate
stocking
- occasional
pumping of water
- shrimp yields of
1-2 tonnes/ha/yr
Intensive
- high stocking
density
- formulated
complete feeds
- aeration and
water pumping
- shrimp yields
of more than 2
tonnes/ha/yr
 Over
the years, the shrimp farming has acquired
the reputation of being destructive (being linked
to mangrove clearing) and unsustainable.
 Causing negative impacts on the environment,
aquatic ecosystems and human lives in coastal
areas including biodiversity depletion,
eutrophication, land modification and food
insecurity (Diana, 2009; Naylor et al., 2000).
 The release of nutrient-rich effluent water on
receiving streams (Porchas and Cordova, 2012).
The BFT for shrimp production has been proposed as a
sustainable practice, capable of reducing
environmental impacts and preventing pathogen
introduction.
 Biofloc is a protein rich aggregate of organic material
and micro-organisms including bacteria, protozoa,
algae, and other suspended organisms (Hargreaves
2006).
 The microbial community associated with BFT not only
detoxifies nutrients, but also can improve feed
utilization and animal growth.
 Bioflocs are assumed to enhance shrimp immunity
because they consume the bioflocs as additional food
source (Kim et al., 2014).

Less or
zero
water
exchange
Shrimp
eat
bacteria,
the feed
recycled
Reducing
viral
disease
outbreaks
BFT
Bacteria
control
water
quality – no
chemical
used
Organic
residues
accumulate
Ideal
conditions
for
bacteria
A
decision-support tool for both policy
makers and industry to assess cradle-to-grave
impacts of all the stages in a product’s life
and processes (Hanafiah MM, 2013).
 Compilation
and evaluation of the inputs,
outputs and the potential environmental
impacts of a product system throughout its
life cycle. This establishes an environmental
profile of the system.
Specific research questions are including:
 What
are the environmental impacts identified
in each phase of the life cycle in shrimp farming
activities?
 How
LCA can be used to maintain and conserve
the ecosystems and the environment in the
shrimp farming industry?

To identify the impact on ecosystem health caused by
shrimp farming activities by measuring the level of
eutrophication, acidification and energy consumption in
shrimp farming phase.

To assess the reliability of the Life Cycle Assessment in
identifying environmental performance at every phase of
shrimp farming activities.

To develop a Life Cycle Assessment model for a biofloc
shrimp farming technology.
1. Goal and scope definition
Aim:
 Identification of the impacts on ecosystem health
caused by shrimp farming activities.
 Assessment of the environmental performance at
every phase of shrimp farming process.
 Development of an LCA model for a biofloc shrimp
farming technology.
Functional unit:
 1 live weight tonne shrimp
System boundaries:
 Gate-to-gate
2. Data inventory (LCI)
 Foreground data from the shrimp production cycle in 2015
 Background data from secondary data supplemented by
SimaPro (version 7.3)
3. Impact assessment (LCIA)
Stressors:
 GHG emissions
 Eutrophication
 Solid waste
 Primary energy use
Method:
 Eco-indicator 99
4. Interpretation
 Limitation
 Sensitivity analysis
 Uncertainty analysis
 Recommendation



A complete gate-to-gate assessment of the biofloc
shrimp farming will be carried-out using a
comprehensive LCA approach.
This research will develop a clear and
comprehensive conceptual framework to analyze
the environmental impacts of biofloc shrimp
farming towards a green and sustainable
aquaculture practice.
The second kind of context is the practice of LCA:
the decision-making and learning processes in
which life cycle studies are carried out and where
the environmental impact will be evaluated.



The aim of investigations of these processes is to
better understand how environmental footprint is
used and perceived and how, or if, they can
contribute to making life cycle data meaningful to
those concerned.
The third context type is related to methods
development; it comprises different attempts to
measure values, attitudes and opinion concerning
environmental changes for the purpose of
expressing the relative severity of such changes.
Finally, a development of an LCA model of all
processes included for shrimp farming activities.