Session 1: Aquaculture and Fisheries

Aquaculture involves cultivating freshwater, brackish water and saltwater populations under controlled or semi-natural conditions, and can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is the harvesting of wild fish.

Session 2: Aquaculture Business and Economics

The economics of aquaculture is reviewed on two levels: micro and macro. Micro-economics in aquaculture deals mainly with the management measures and elements affecting the efficiency of operation at the farm level, while macro-economics addresses the assessment of social benefits and costs of an aquaculture project. Using Sea Resources Sustainably. At present as using sea resources sustainably the importance of aquaculture and its systems is indefinable. Aquaculture provides alternative resources for fishing from the sea. Enhanced demand for nutrients or food sources and an increase in globalization has conducted enhanced fishing.

Session 3: Aquaculture Engineering

Aquacultural Engineering is concerned with the design and development of effective aquacultural systems for marine and freshwater facilities. The journal aims to apply the knowledge gained from basic research which potentially can be translated into commercial operations. Problems of scale-up and application of research data involve many parameters, both physical and biological, making it difficult to anticipate the interaction between the unit processes and the cultured animals. Aqua cultural Engineering aims to develop the bioengineering interface for aquaculture.

Session 4: Aquaponics

Aquaponics is a cooperation between plants and fish and the term originates from the two words aquaculture (the growing of fish in a closed environment) and hydroponics (the growing of plants usually in a soil-less environment). Aquaponic systems come in various sizes from small indoor units to large commercial units.

Session 5: Aquatic Biology, Environment, and Ecology

Aquatic ecology includes the study of these relationships in all aquatic environments, including oceans, estuaries, lakes, ponds, wetlands, rivers, and streams. An ecosystem is a community of living organisms and their physical and chemical environment, linked by flows of energy and nutrients.

Session 6: Aquatic Nutrition and Fish Feed

Aquatic Nutrition involves the complete diets, typically made up of the following components and percentage ranges: protein, 18-50 percent; lipids, 10-25 percent; carbohydrate, 15-20 percent; ash, <8.5 percent; phosphorus, <1.5 percent; water, <10 percent; and trace amounts of vitamins and minerals.

Feed is one of the most important external signals in fish that stimulates its feeding behavior and growth. The intake of feed is the main factor determining efficiency and cost, maximizing production efficiency in a fish farming firm.

Fish nutrition, feeds, and feeding management play important roles in increasing the productivity of aquaculture farms. A nutritionally-balanced feed and adequate feeding are important factors that maximize fish production and profitability.

Session 7: Aquatic Pollution and Toxicology

Aquatic toxicology generally involves the measurement of contaminant levels to characterize the hazards imposed on the aquatic environment; however, this field of study also includes information on how those contaminants can affect humans in and around these aquatic environments.

Session 8: Fish Disease and Parasites

Fish disease include abnormalities and symptoms such as a fish not feeding, ulcers on the body, or cloudy eyes. The most common indicators of disease are fish coming to the surface and gasping for oxygen, or higher than usual levels of sickness or death in an aquaculture system.

Session 9: Fish Farming Techniques

Fish farming is a process of breeding, raising, and transporting of fishes for domestic and commercial purposes. Fishes top the list when it comes to healthy and nutritional food options as they are a rich source of proteins and other minerals.  However, there are primarily three types of pisciculture. They are - Monoculture, Polyculture and Monosex Culture. Fish Farming method involves the cage system, Pond system, Integrated Recycling system, Classic Fry farming.

Session 10: Fisheries Machinery and Instruments

Fisheries Machinery and instruments involves the weighing scales of varying capacities – devices used to measure the weight of fish/raw materials and ingredients needed in fish/food processing. Beaker- a device used to measure liquid ingredients. Measuring cup – used to measure dry ingredients. Measuring spoon - used to measure small amount of solid and liquid.

Equipment and machinery are inevitable for the large-scale processing and manufacturing of fishery products. Manually it is not easy to process fish that are landed in bulk quantities. Machinery help to maximize production with minimum human handling and reduce the wastage of fishes, which is otherwise a highly perishable commodity. For the mass production of fishery products, machinery is needed for fish pre-processing operations (i.e. to remove unwanted parts of the fish, shape the fish flesh into required sizes etc.), for suitable preservation techniques to be applied (i.e. chilling, drying, freezing, retorting etc.), for value addition and pack it in appropriate containers and store it till it reaches the consumer in a good form. Use of appropriate equipment and machines along the fish value chain will help in producing better quality products and fetch higher price.

Session 11: Fisheries Management

Fisheries management is the process that creates and enforces the rules that are needed to prevent overfishing and help overfished stocks rebound. The integrated process of information gathering, analysis, planning, consultation, decision-making, allocation of resources and formulation and implementation, with enforcement as necessary, of regulations or rules which govern fisheries activities in order to ensure the continued productivity of the resources and accomplishment of other fisheries objectives.

Session 12: Fisheries Science and Research

Fisheries Science is internationally respected for its publication of basic and applied research articles in a broad range of subject areas relevant to fisheries science. It has a long tradition of publishing quality papers in such important topics as Fisheries, Biology, Aquaculture, Environment, Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Food Science and Technology. Each volume includes about 120 peer-reviewed articles. 

Session 13: Fishery Resource Habitats and Management

Fishery Resources and Habitat Assessment aims to assess the spatial distribution of species/resources including different life history stages and their associated habitats for the three different realms viz. pelagic, mesopelagic and demersal systems. The fine-scale knowledge on the habitat suitability of these realms is crucial for effective management and the conservation of marine resources and to develop predictive capabilities. This will be addressed through the objectives:

Assessment of pelagic, mesopelagic and deep-sea habitats using conventional methods and fisheries-acoustics.

To explain the inter-linkage between the biotic and abiotic environment that sustains the resources in the above ecosystems.

Session 14: Genetics and Aqua Culture

Fisheries and aquaculture genetics refers to the application of genetic principles and methods to fisheries and aquaculture biology and their management including seafood safety. This approach uses putatively neutral markers such as allozymes, mitochondrial DNA, and microsatellites, as well as the recent advances in next-generation sequencing (NGS) which have led to the massive discovery of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to study genome-wide (neutral) and allele-specific (adaptive) patterns of diversity in aquatic organisms.

Fisheries genetics includes specimen identification and barcoding, assessment of stock structure and admixture, monitoring of stocking and re-stocking programs, analysis of genetic diversity and variation and assisting conservation management program of wild fisheries resources. Aquaculture genetics deals with issues of genetic variability and fitness, inbreeding, selective breeding of desired quantitative traits and many more. Alternatively, seafood safety issues includes seafood authentication and traceability analysed using specific molecular markers.

Session 15: Genetics of Aquatic Species

Aquaculture genetics deals with issues of genetic variability and fitness, inbreeding, selective breeding of desired quantitative traits and many more. Alternatively, seafood safety issues includes seafood authentication and traceability analyzed using specific molecular markers.

Session 16: Healthy and ecological farming technology

Fish farming has expanded globally in order to improve food security, yet aquaculture practices are far from being environmentally friendly. World Fish helps to conserve biodiversity and improve coastal fisheries while also promoting the use of climate-smart aquaculture technologies through various projects in Bangladesh. There are several things that actors in the fishing industry can invest in through actions that will pay dividends for Mother Earth. Sustainable biofloc fish farming is an eco-friendly practice gaining popularity among fish farmers worldwide. Biofloc technology involves cultivating beneficial microbial communities that provide a natural food source for fish while improving water quality.

Session 17: Immunology of Aquatic Species

The fish immune system is responsible for destroying microorganisms through acquired and innate components, with humoral and cellular process that perform together in an attempt to prevent the outbreak of diseases.

Session 18: Mariculture

Mariculture has been defined as the cultivation, management, and harvesting of marine organisms in their natural environment (including estuarine, brackish, coastal, and offshore waters) or in enclosures such as pens, tanks, or channels.

Session 19: Marine and Coastal Fisheries

Marine and Coastal Fisheries involves the Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science publishes original and innovative research that synthesizes information on biological organization across spatial and temporal scales to promote ecologically sound fisheries science and management. This open-access, online journal published by the American Fisheries Society provides an international venue for studies of marine, coastal, and estuarine fisheries, with emphasis on species' performance and responses to perturbations in their environment, and promotes the development of ecosystem-based fisheries science and management. 

Session 20: Marine biodiversity

Marine biodiversity is the variety of life in our ocean. It includes all animals, plants and microorganisms living in our ocean, from barnacles to whales to coral reefs. The term is also used to describe the abundance of species living in an area.

Session 21: Marine Science and Marine Biology

Marine biology is the study of marine organisms, their behaviors and interactions with the environment. Marine biologists study biological oceanography and the associated fields of chemical, physical, and geological oceanography to understand marine organisms.

Session 22: Market analyses and competition in Regional and International Trade

Fisheries are common-pool resources, and many of world’s fisheries are overexploited. At the same time, capture fisheries and aquaculture operations can impinge on public goods provided by marine ecosystems such as marine biodiversity and unique habitat. The common-pool and public goods dimensions of the marine environment justify regulation, but the issues frequently transcend national boundaries. Individual countries have few alternatives to protect the marine environment beyond their own jurisdictions. The international nature of marine conservation thus provides an incentive for countries to use trade policy as an indirect means to protect the marine environment. Because a large share of the available seafood is being traded, trade restrictions can potentially lead to better resource protection and better fishing practices.

Session 23: Fish/food conversion efficiency

Fish are generally seen as more efficient in converting feed into food than land-based species, but, according to a new paper, this conclusion does not hold if the retention of protein and calories is accounted for using a different measure.

Session 24: Oceanography and Limnology

Oceanography is the study of the biological, chemical, geological, optical and physical characteristics of oceans and estuaries, while limnology is the study of these same characteristics in inland waters (lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, and wetlands). Limnology is closely related to aquatic ecology and hydrobiology, which study aquatic organisms and their interactions with the abiotic (non-living) environment. While limnology has substantial overlap with freshwater-focused disciplines (e.g., freshwater biology), it also includes the study of inland salt lakes.

Session 25: Policies, legislations, public perceptions and ethical issues

The protection of the marine environment is propelled in part by specific principles that yield normative prescriptions to guide conduct. Four of these namely sustainable development, pollution prevention, precaution, and the polluter pays are all ultimately characterized as principles. Depletion of fish stocks results in a decrease in food supply from the sea, economic loss, hardship to fishers and disruption of traditional ways of life. Overfishing thus threatens the ecosystem, the sustainable use of fishing grounds and the livelihood of fishing communities.

Session 26: Pollution and nutrient impacts of chemical compounds use in aquaculture

Toxicity in aquaculture systems usually refers to the harmful effects of elevated concentrations of metabolites (carbon dioxide, ammonia, nitrite, and hydrogen sulfide), algal toxins, heavy metals, and agricultural and industrial chemicals. The primary effect of aquaculture effluents on running waters is to increase ammoniacal nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations in the water immediately downstream of the discharge. In lakes cage culture can cause long-term elevations of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus levels. Chemicals used in aquaculture can enter natural waters to cause water pollution. Some chemicals pose a danger to farm workers through potential toxicity or as fire and explosion hazards, and residues of certain chemicals may contaminate aquaculture products and present a food safety concern.

Session 27: Preservation and Processing of Aquatic Products

In the processing of aquatic products, it is generally necessary to use methods such as ozone water washing and to operate at low temperatures to reduce microorganisms, in order to prevent raw materials from spoiling and deteriorating. The four most popular methods of fish preservation are freezing, canning, smoking and pickling. Fish are salted by packing them between layers of salt or by immersion in brine. The fish most extensively salted are cod, herring, mackerel, and haddock. Smoking preserves fish by drying, by deposition of creosote ingredients, and, when the fish are near the source of heat, by heat penetration.

Session 28: Quarantine processes of fish

Fish quarantine, as the name suggests, is all about keeping the fish under quarantine or in isolation for certain period for some specific reasons. Most of the expert aquarists implement the theory of quarantining the fish which the beginners fail to understand and end up with dead fish. So let us understand why having a quarantine tank is important and why quarantining the fish for some period could become the wisest decision.

Session 29: Seafood sustainability, certification and traceability

Seafood traceability is the ability to fully trace a product from the point of sale to its source. Traceability is critical in the movement towards sustainability. The Friend of the Sea certification helps restore confidence as doubtful sustainability claims proliferate. 

Session 30: Stock assessment and modelling

Stock assessment models are the mathematical and statistical techniques stock assessments use to analyze and understand the impact of fisheries and environmental factors on fish stocks. NOAA Fisheries uses a wide variety of stock assessment models in its stock assessments.

Session 31: Techniques to manage genetic quality Broodstock

Broodstock management involves manipulating environmental factors surrounding the broodstock to ensure maximum survival, enhance gonadal development and increase fecundity. Broodstock management involves all the appropriate measures taken by the aquaculturist to enable a captive group of fish to undergo reproductive maturation and spawning, and produce fertilized eggs.

Session 32: Seafood chemistry nutrition and safety in aquaculture

In fish farming (aquaculture), nutrition is critical because feed typically represents approximately 50 percent of the variable production cost. Fish nutrition has advanced dramatically in recent years with the development of new, balanced commercial diets that promote optimal fish growth and health. Carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur are instances of significant supplements. Most freshwater omnivorous and herbivorous species require 30-40% protein in their dry eating routine, while marine and freshwater rapacious species require 40-55 percent protein in their eating regimen.