Aquacultural Engineering I (1982) 1-3

EDITORIAL

During the last two decades there has been a dramatic increase in aquacultural activity
in both rich and poor countries. Much of this has come from the pressure, due to
increased population, being placed on the main sources of proteins. The rearing of
fish has a very long history and the traditional location, in the tropical regions, still
accounts for the bulk of aquacultural production. Although many of these earlier
commercial successes have been based on low technology production techniques,
the progressive change-over from herbivores to carnivores, certainly in the Western
World, has involved increasing technological sophistication. I believe that the aqua-
cultural applications of traditional engineering now represent a sufficiently mature
and distinct research discipline to warrant a separate publication medium. This new
journal, Aquacultural Engineering, is thus dedicated to the dissemination of all aspects
of the applied sciences necessary for the successful solution of the challenging practical
problems posed by current and future developments in aquaculture.
The major emphasis of this journal will be on applications. The scope of these areas
of application is today very broad and continues to expand at a rapid rate. Thus, one
can find recently published work not only in the more traditional areas such as coastal
pond design and harvesting of prawns, but also in emerging areas such as re-cycling
systems, linear programming for fish harvesting schedules, heated effluents and stock
control. At the present time, a majority of these papers on applications are widely
scattered in a large number of journals from various disciplines. While Aquacultural
Engineering will not, and probably should not, absorb all these papers it will be very
useful to collect representative examples in a single journal in order to emphasize both
the similarity of the underlying objectives and the diversity of the applications.
I believe that it is especially valuable for people applying a particular theory in one
area to see how problems have been constructed and solved in other areas. Although
each application may have its own special solution the techniques devised have often
a much wider applicability than is first apparent. These ideas are not just my own, for
1
Aquacultural Engineering 0144-8609/82/0001-0001/$02.75 © Applied Science Publishers Ltd,
England, 1982
Printed in Great Britain
2 EDITORIAL

it was from the many favourable replies from eminent workers in the field of aqua-
culture that this journal was conceived. They too expressed the need to establish a
medium of communication for engineering in the field of aquaculture as their concern
was that some of the lack of success in earlier projects has been the shortage of multi-
discipline activity at the beginning of the programme.
Also, I hope that Aquacultural Engineering can both help ease the entry of new
research workers into engineering areas and help stimulate further applications in
other areas.
A common complaint among aquacultural engineering practitioners is that many of
the existing journals are by nature 'biological/scientific'. They feel that their work in
solving a new problem may be considered too technical since it includes a significant
mathematical content. Our aim, therefore, is to provide an outlet of an explicitly
applied nature where the authors will be welcome to present numerical data, experi-
mental correlations and developed empirical relationships. This is not intended to be
anti-scientific but rather is a recognition of the following facts: that there are obvious
and in some cases not so obvious deficiencies in the biological data which exist in some
considerable volume; that there has been only a limited amount of activity directed
towards using this knowledge to develop and operate aquacultural systems; that pure
biological science has to be sacrificed to some degree if new and realistic problems are
to be resolved in aquaculture; that there is a place for the engineer/economist to
translate this scientific knowledge into practical and economically feasible systems
producing cultured aquatic crops; that there exists ample opportunity to publish
purely biological data in other recognized journals of biological/scientific excellence.
Ideally we should build up a store of practical experiences which in turn should
stimulate further theoretical investigation. In summary, a primary objective of this
journal should be to provide an inter-disciplinary forum for the reporting of interesting
aquacultural engineering activities.
With new problems stimulating development and/or improving old solutions we
should be especially critical since almost all solutions require some form of com-
promise. A second and complementary objective of the journal will be to serve as a
focal point for the testing, comparison and further development of 'solved' problems.
Furthermore, as the industry expands we shall have to re-think many of the tradi-
tions of the past and I hope that the papers published in this journal will reflect these
trends.
Because of the inter-disciplinary nature of this journal, the need for clarity of
writing will be even more important than is usually the case. Authors cannot assume
that the readership will be completely familiar with the background of their work.
In particular, the authors of complex engineering developments will be expected to
describe carefully the motivation for, and the formulation of, their problem in terms
which are easily understood by readers outside the discipline of the topic. Above all,
those features peculiar to their individual problems must be explained so that the
reader can appreciate both the theory/method chosen for the solution and also the
 EDITORIAL 3

authors' interpretation of the results obtained. The authors' comments regarding the
most critical needs for further research will be especially useful. It is also imperative
that all papers should include a list of appropriate and readily available reference
material.
The journal will offer a full range of article types: survey and review articles, full
papers, short communications, comments, book reviews and short announcements.
In most cases the survey papers will be written by qualified leaders in their speciality,
at the invitation of the editors. Short communications, of under 2000 words, will be
particularly appropriate in presenting additional results on previously reported work
with improvements, modifications or test results pertaining to the methods used.
Frequently, those people most heavily involved in aquaculture simply cannot take the
time to write a full paper. In this situation, I would encourage the submission of a
short communication to summarize the most significant features of the work in
question. Discussions of previously published papers and letters to the editor on topics
o f general interest will be published as comments. Book reviews will be taken by the
editors on a case-by-case basis. Material appropriate for announcements must be sent
for consideration to the Editor at least six months before publication date of the
intended issue.
I take this opportunity to welcome publicly the members of the Editorial Board
who have graciously consented to help in this venture. Several of the Board have
already significantly aided our efforts with their contributions to the first issue. I think
that the Editorial Board membership reflects the wide distribution of discipline areas
as well as geographical locations. I should point out that the nominal tenure for a
Board member is three years so we expect to be able to involve a large number of
specialists in their own field over the next few years. In addition, many of you may
be/or will be asked to participate in the refereeing process which is so essential to the
success of a journal of this type. Your efforts are and will be sincerely appreciated
and I hope you shall gain personal satisfaction in this difficult work which will be
reflected in the readership of this journal.
So, we begin publication with this first issue of Aquacultural Engineering. I think
an encouraging start has been made. I will certainly welcome your participation and
naturally hope that you will consider this journal favourably for the publication of
your own work in the future. There are many problems ahead, especially in getting high
quality manuscripts since there are still a relatively small number of people currently
active in aquacultural developments and many of these are outside academia and
therefore not encouraged to publish their findings. I am confident, however, that
this journal, with its primary emphasis on the applied science side of aquaculture, can
help foster inter-disciplinary activity. Aquacultural Engineering must have a broad
field of reference if it is to succeed and I hope this is reflected in the first issue's
contents.