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Enhanced sulfide burial in low-oxygen aquatic environments could offset the carbon footprint of aquaculture production

Nature Food volume 5, pages 988–994 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Carbon removal from the atmosphere is needed to keep global mean temperature increases below 2 °C. Here, we develop a model to explore how alkalinity production through enhanced iron sulfide formation in low-oxygen aquatic environments, such as aquaculture systems, could offer a cost-effective means of CO2 removal. We show that enhanced sulfide burial through the supply of reactive iron to surface sediments may be able to capture up to a hundred million tonnes of CO2 per year, particularly in countries with the highest number of fish farms, such as China and Indonesia. These efforts could largely offset the carbon footprint associated with their aquaculture industry. Enhanced sulfide burial could directly benefit both fish farms and surrounding ecosystems by removing toxic sulfide from aquatic systems, providing an addition to durable global CO2 removal markets and a path towards large-scale, carbon-neutral aquatic food production.

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Fig. 1: Schematic sedimentary sulfur cycling and modelled rates of sulfate reduction.
Fig. 2: The modelled flux of sulfide burial and CDR for different SRRs.
Fig. 3: CDR potential of anoxic basins, wetlands and fish farms.
Fig. 4: Estimated cost of ESB in China.

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Data availability

The data for the areas of fish farms were obtained from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Code availability

All model code and configuration files are available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13286633 (ref. 50).

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Acknowledgements

N.J.P. acknowledges funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Mojtaba Fakhraee & Noah J. Planavsky

  2. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

    Mojtaba Fakhraee

  3. Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Noah J. Planavsky

Authors
  1. Mojtaba Fakhraee
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  2. Noah J. Planavsky
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Contributions

Conceptualization: M.F. and N.J.P. Methodology: M.F. and N.J.P. Investigation: M.F. Visualization: M.F. Funding acquisition: N.J.P. Project administration: N.J.P. Supervision: N.J.P. Writing—original draft: M.F. and N.J.P. Writing—review and editing: M.F. and N.J.P.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Mojtaba Fakhraee or Noah J. Planavsky.

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Nature Food thanks Neill Goosen, Bob Hilton and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Information

Sensitivity analysis, Supplementary Tables 1–4, Figs. 1–5 and References.

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Fakhraee, M., Planavsky, N.J. Enhanced sulfide burial in low-oxygen aquatic environments could offset the carbon footprint of aquaculture production. Nat Food 5, 988–994 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-024-01077-9

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