ABSTRACT
Although aquaculture producers are aware of the probable occurrence of undesirable events (uncontrollable environmental, biological, and economic factors), decision-making is regularly made under the assumption of certainty, especially through their own experiences or those of other producers. This situation has caused some of the productive proposals to fail because the stochasticity variable has not been considered, only deterministic scenarios. One of the alternatives to improve this condition has been the application of risk and uncertainty analysis. This approach – through decision theory and business analytics – allows estimating and evaluating the consequences of exposure to a hazard or a source of uncertainty. Thus, the purpose of this analysis is to be able to quantify “uncertainty” and then use it in the calculation of probabilities to achieve the desired objective and/or not incur undesirable events. Therefore, this review discusses the importance of risk and uncertainty in decision-making in aquaculture production, presenting the main sources of uncertainty in aquaculture activities. Additionally, the different methods for estimating risk and uncertainty in aquaculture are explored and recent studies where these methods are applied are also presented. Finally, the benefits of incorporating these types of studies in aquaculture activities are discussed, in addition to reviewing recent studies where risk management has begun to be strengthened through the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques. The chapter ends with a basic proposal for risk and uncertainty quantification.
