Agricultural production will be challenged in the near future to keep up with the rising nutritional demands of a growing global population. Additionally, climate change, through increased frequency of extreme weather events and droughts, will further push food production to its limits. Controlled environment food production systems (CEFPS) are suggested as viable options to supplement existing agriculture by allowing food production expansion without requiring large amounts of land and by offering protection from changing weather patterns and other undesirable external conditions. Aquaponics is a form of CEFPS that combines recirculating aquaculture with hydroponics to produce both fish and vegetables. However, the environmental and economic performances of these systems in Canada and other cold climates have yet to be explored in depth.
The overarching goal was to evaluate the potential for aquaponics to be a responsible and sustainable solution to maintaining Canadian food security. Specifically, this thesis aimed to identify environmental and economic barriers faced by small-scale Canadian aquaponics systems and provide options for reducing barriers and environmental impacts through the application of life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle cost (LCC) analysis.