This paper focuses on the availability of economic indicators and metrics to assess effects of marine aquaculture production in the North Atlantic area (the EU, Norway, Canada and USA), including also social and environmental effects. We consider how aquaculture planning and management is organised in the different countries and the usefulness of economic information to address different aquaculture‐related policies. We find that the most relevant economic data for aquaculture management should be at the local and regional levels rather than nationally. The availability of such economic data is mapped for national, regional and local level. The focus is on data that are publicly available from authorities or research institutions. The availability of data is generally fairly good for national and regional data on the direct economic effects of aquaculture. Data on how aquaculture‐related products or input markets are affected are however poorly available, as are economic data on external effects from aquaculture. Countries with a larger aquaculture sector tend to have better availability of aquaculture‐related economic data than those with a smaller sector. An index is developed and calculated to show more specifically where the countries have relatively good or poor data availability compared to their needs. While it will not always be cost‐effective or meaningful to collect economic data on the effects of aquaculture, our study indicates that several countries could benefit from expanding such data collection. It can make trade‐off decisions more consistent and easier to perform, and aquaculture policies and measures can be better tailored to specific contexts.

中文翻译：

---

关于水产养殖影响的经济数据的可用性和实用性：北大西洋比较评估

本文着重于评估北大西洋地区（欧盟，挪威，加拿大和美国）海洋水产养殖生产的影响的经济指标和指标，包括社会和环境影响。我们考虑不同国家如何组织水产养殖计划和管理，以及考虑经济信息对解决与水产养殖有关的不同政策的有用性。我们发现，与水产养殖管理最相关的经济数据应该在地方和地区层面上，而不是在全国范围内。此类经济数据的可用性针对国家，地区和地方级别进行了映射。重点是可从主管部门或研究机构公开获得的数据。对于国家和区域有关水产养殖直接经济影响的数据，数据的可用性通常相当好。但是，关于水产养殖相关产品或投入市场的影响方式的数据很少，有关水产养殖外部影响的经济数据也很难获得。与水产养殖部门较大的国家相比，水产养殖部门较大的国家往往具有更好的水产养殖相关经济数据。制定并计算了一个指数，以更具体地显示与需求相比这些国家的数据可用性相对较好或较差的国家。尽管收集有关水产养殖影响的经济数据并不总是具有成本效益或有意义的，但我们的研究表明，一些国家可以从扩大此类数据收集中受益。