Contributions from INCAR Science to Aquaculture Public and Private Decision-Making in the Face of El Niño Threat and Climate Change in General
.webp)
For more than a decade, the Interdisciplinary Center for Aquaculture Research (INCAR-INCAR2), with funding from the Chilean government, has contributed to the study of climate change and its influence on the functioning of the ecosystems that sustain aquaculture, generating results that are useful for current decision-making. Our first relevant publication in this field addressed key elements that determine salmon farming vulnerability to climate change[1]. This publication also generated the first of the many Policy Briefs our center has produced[2].
The risk maps we developed in 2020 remain fully valid and help to gauge and address, in an informed manner, the comparative risks of losing salmon and/or mussel biomass across different aquaculture neighborhoods or areas, under the different levels of climate threat that the strong 2026-2027 El Niño could trigger. These maps already set out the exposure levels of farming areas to very dry summers and autumns, and to direct hazards such as harmful algal blooms, parasitism and disease[3].
Our publications also address the complex interaction between terrestrial and aquatic systems under extreme climate scenarios at different spatial and temporal scales, providing insights on the effects of climate variability on river basins that are essential to the production processes of salmon hatcheries, as well as on the role of these basins as modulators of the oceanography of systems heavily used for salmon fattening and for mussel seed collection[4].
But our contribution is not limited to reporting on patterns and mechanisms of change; we have also contributed to the development of adaptation strategies against climate hazards that increase risk in salmon and mussel farming, both at the local level[5] and within a global strategic framework for climate change adaptation[6]. This work seeks to support the planning and strengthening of adaptation measures in aquaculture systems at different scales.
Recently, and acknowledging the progress and improvements in adaptation mechanisms and measures, we published a new study discussing how the spatial distribution of the sector’s production remains an important risk factor[7]. In this contribution, we propose implementing a traffic-light system to regulate maximum salmon production by area or neighborhood, one that treats the climate threat as a sensitivity factor interacting with the oceanography of the water bodies that sustain this production system, which is essential to take into account.
At INCAR2, we hope that the science generated by this and other centers of excellence in Chile will be a fundamental pillar in this time of uncertainty regarding the potential impacts of the 2026-2027 El Niño. This science, built over the years with public funding, already offers concrete tools—risk maps, sensitivity and exposure indicators for aquaculture, and adaptation frameworks—that make it possible to anticipate impacts rather than merely react to them. Now is the time to use it: sound science must be the foundation of technological innovations and of mitigation and adaptation strategies, guiding public and private decisions that reduce risks to aquaculture, to the communities that depend on it, and to the ecosystems that sustain it.
[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/raq.12336
[2] https://incar2.cl/politicas-publicas
[3] https://arclim.mma.gob.cl/atlas/sector_index/acuicultura/; https://arclim.mma.gob.cl/media/informes_consolidados/01_ACUICULTURA.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2021.104705.
[4] https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-71008-y; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-58131-8; https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-025-03956-x
[5] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/raq.12336
.webp)
