Social benefits and environmental performance of aquaculture need to improve worldwide

As a crucial source of protein for humans, aquaculture provides societal benefits but also poses environmental costs making it pivotal to strike a balance between costs and benefits to ensure aquaculture sustainability. Here we developed a composite sustainability index integrating societal benefits and environmental costs of aquaculture. The results show that two-fifths of the 161 countries achieved a high sustainability score (score > 50) in 2018, indicating a considerable need for improvement in the sustainability of aquaculture worldwide. This was particularly true for Asian countries (average score 45.01 ± 11.44), while European countries outperformed other regions (60.15 ± 13.64). Moreover, a Boosted Regression Tree model revealed that 59.3% of the variance in aquaculture sustainability was supported by eight indicators, including social factors, geographical effects, and aquaculture structures. By focusing on bivalve production and maintaining an optimized choice of fishes and shrimp taxa, the sustainability of global aquaculture could be enhanced. Asian and African countries need to improve aquaculture’s social benefits and environmental performance, and European countries outperformed other regions in overall aquaculture sustainability according to an analysis that uses a composite index with social, economic, and environmental data.