ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors aim to advance understanding of the social carrying capacity of aquaculture in the context of Maine's post-productive transition through an analysis of government documents to develop an empirical metric of conflicts, as a proxy for social carrying capacity. They seek to explain the patterns observed using these documents, community metrics and ethnographic and stakeholder interviews. Their study is part of research conducted through Maine's Sustainable Ecological Aquaculture Network, known as SEANET. They generated a map of all farm locations by licence type to show the spatial variation in aquaculture across the state and the location of the six study sites selected for comparative analysis. The sites are: Saco Bay and the New Meadows within Casco Bay; Damariscotta River and Blue Hill Bay region; and Machias Bay and Cobscook Bay. They adopt a sequential, mixed methods research approach to understand social carrying capacity and its relationship to rural restructuring.
