While marine aquaculture, or mariculture, has been growing rapidly and globally in recent decades, many environmental concerns remain to be fully addressed to achieve its long-term goal of sustainable development. This paper aims to provide a synthesized perspective on these issues by reviewing and discussing the characterization, transport, and current modelling and management tools associated with effluents released from mariculture sites. Specifically, we examined the effluent characteristics and behavior from source-to-sink, including the composition and load of effluent discharge, its transport and transformation processes in the water column and at the seabed, and its impacts on the pelagic and benthic environments. We then focused on management-related issues, including the setting of the regulatory mixing zone, the establishment of environmental standards, monitoring measures, and modelling techniques to depict the current state-of-the-art modes in a global context. Our study shows that while substantial progress has been made in understanding the nature of the mariculture effluent, as well as in monitoring and modelling its transport and fate, the regulatory framework still lags behind in many countries where the mariculture industry is relevant. This is particularly evident in the lack of consistent criteria for the definition of regulatory mixing zones and the associated environmental standards for water quality and benthic impacts. Besides, as new predictive models are emerging quickly, their proper evaluation and validation are imperative in view of their increasing application in regulatory practices. This review is intended to provide references for advancing regulatory management of mariculture effluents, as well as for promoting sustainable mariculture development.

中文翻译：

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海水养殖废水综述：表征和管理工具

虽然近几十年来海水养殖或海水养殖在全球范围内迅速发展，但许多环境问题仍有待充分解决，以实现其可持续发展的长期目标。本文旨在通过审查和讨论与海水养殖场排放的污水相关的特征、传输以及当前的建模和管理工具，提供对这些问题的综合观点。具体而言，我们研究了从源到汇的流出物特征和行为，包括流出物排放的成分和负荷、其在水体和海床上的运输和转化过程，以及其对远洋和底栖环境的影响。然后我们专注于管理相关的问题，包括监管混合区的设置，建立环境标准、监测措施和建模技术，以在全球范围内描述当前最先进的模式。我们的研究表明，虽然在了解海水养殖废水的性质以及监测和模拟其运输和归宿方面取得了实质性进展，但在许多与海水养殖业相关的国家，监管框架仍然落后。这在监管混合区的定义以及相关的水质和底栖影响环境标准缺乏一致的标准方面尤为明显。此外，随着新预测模型的快速出现，鉴于它们在监管实践中的应用越来越多，对其进行适当的评估和验证势在必行。