ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the complete planning procedure of an offshore seaweed farm starting from theory to practical realization of taking the entire land-based preparation and the complete logical chain of workflows at sea into account. Farming algae species in offshore waters offer to be a solution for bridging the gap of rising demand for macroalgal products. This increasing demand cannot be met by cultivations only on land or in coastal waters. Many national and international projects have identified promising seaweed species and are developing robust technologies to allow the move into a more hostile ocean.
To date, a few commercial operating industries are conducting seaweed culture in high-energy environments. However, these have to follow quite stringent site-selection criteria catalogs to avoid failure during planning and setup, O&M, and reducing the risk of loss of equipment and plant material, reduced growth, and economic calamities. All these issues are exemplified here.
In addition, this chapter includes the current globally conducted intriguing move of aquaculture operations from land-based cultivation into the offshore realm by allowing the multiuse of already existing offshore installations.
Keywords: Offshore aquaculture, open ocean aquaculture, multiuse, offshore seaweed cultivation, high-energy environment, offshore wind farms, Laminaria cultivation
