ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the process of developing a generic bioeconomic model for a fish farm. It proceeds by specifying an individual fish growth model with emphasis on nutritional aspects. The farm level optimization problem is not solved, but the structure of a model currently under development and ideas for future research are discussed. In an optimization model, information that flows out of the fish, pond and/or farm submodel is processed by the economic submodel, which then "decides" on new values for decision variables as input for the next simulation run. Once a good biophysical model (fish, pond and farm submodels) has been developed, the variety and flexibility of potential economic models are enormous. In the sections that follow, a simple optimization is presented to illustrate one of many possible economic models. The individual fish optimization can be translated to the pond level by incorporating the aeration strategy and by describing the dynamics of water quality.
