CADS_TOOL: Cage Aquaculture Site Suitability and Economic Appraisal

Four linked modules for classifying site suitability, selecting optimal locations, calculating sustainable holding capacity, and performing economic appraisals for cage aquaculture. The tool was developed by the Australian Ocean Data Network but is no longer supported as software. Its algorithms are specified in referenced papers to facilitate re-implementation in languages like Python or R.

Use Cases

• Classify aquaculture sites into Poor, Medium, or Good categories based on water quality, substrate, hydrometeorology, and socioeconomics.
• Select the best site from several alternatives by applying user-defined weights to the classification criteria.
• Calculate sustainable holding capacity for marine cages using models from Stigebrandt et al (2004), Tookwinas et al (2004), or Hanafi et al (2006).
• Perform a basic economic appraisal for a farm at a chosen site to calculate break-even price and return on investment.

Strengths

• Integrates four distinct analytical modules covering environmental, spatial, and economic factors.
• References specific, peer-reviewed calculation methods for both marine and freshwater cage aquaculture.
• Algorithms are documented in published papers, enabling potential re-implementation in modern programming languages.

Limitations

• The original software is unsupported and will not run on typical PCs; data must be re-implemented from algorithms.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Developed as a decision support tool with modules based on published scientific models.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-04 23:46:03.476674; freshness should be verified.