AquaBreak Project: A Nature-Based Solution Towards Food Demand and Coastal Protection

Due to the increase in world population over the past 30 years, the overall demand for food is expected to increase over the next few decades. To meet the additional demand for food, the world will need to increase global food production by 70% by 2050. In addition, population growth, which will be most noticeable in typically more attractive coastal areas, combined with complex climate change scenarios, will increase pressure on coastal regions. The AquaBreak project emerged as a nature-based offshore solution that simultaneously acts as a breakwater to improve coastal protection and dissipate wave energy, as well as an optimized aquaculture system for food production in countries largely dependent on their local marine economies, such as Portugal and Norway. The AquaBreak Offshore System (AOS) is a modular offshore aquaculture system with a central cage designed to interrupt wave propagation, thus disrupting the natural propagation of waves and serving as a dissipator of wave energy for coastal protection. In the past, many aquaculture and offshore metallic structures had severe corrosion problems, resulting in an overall shorter life of these structures. The AOS solves the corrosion problem by using environmentally friendly composite materials that are less susceptible to corrosion instead of using only metallic elements, copper, or steel mooring lines. This study examines the implementation of the AOS on the Portuguese coast, with special attention to coastal zones with high erosion rates from Espinho to Caminha. It provides insights into the latest developments of the Aquabreak project and highlights that cost-effective, resilient and eco-friendly synergistic solutions for coastal protection and marine resource exploitation are possible.