China's mariculture net cages in typhoon and sea ice disasters: challenges and prevention strategy

Abstract

In recent years, mariculture has been prominent in solving the problem of high-quality protein sources for human beings. As an essential mode of mariculture, cage culture has gradually entered a period of rapid development. However, extreme marine disasters such as typhoons and sea ice bring different degrees of damage to mariculture net cages and even jeopardize the lives and property safety of aquaculture practitioners. Strong winds and waves caused by typhoon disasters lead to cage overtopping, cage frame collapse, and structural damage. Sea ice disasters caused by net cage frozen and ice floes impingement lead to a decline in the structural stability of the net cage, deformation, shifting, and collapse. These problems cause the cultured fish to collide with each other, triggering fish injuries, fish diseases, and fish escapes. At the same time, drastic environmental changes have limited farmed fish growth, resulting in a significant decline in aquaculture production. In summary, typhoon and sea ice disasters have become essential factors restricting China's rapid development of mariculture net cages. This paper reviews the development of mariculture net cages in China, the damage of mariculture net cages in typhoons and sea ice disasters, and the hazards of typhoons and sea ice disasters on net cages. Moreover, put forward the routine maintenance of net cages and disaster prevention and mitigation strategies to provide references for the safety of mariculture net cages and the prevention and mitigation of marine disasters.