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While marine aquaculture has grown rapidly, so have concerns regarding the environmental impacts caused by the industry. In particular, increasing discharges of solid and dissolved fish excretions, nutrients and therapeutic chemicals have coincided with greater public awareness of the possibility of environmental damage. This has stimulated a number of criticisms, drawn from a wide spectrum of interests, ranging from the use of natural fish stocks to produce fish meal for aqua feeds to the effects of enhanced nutrient input on the coastal marine environment. The present study reviews available information on the environmental effects of feeding practices in salmonid aquaculture in Europe. Accumulation of waste food and fish faecal material results in changes in the sediment under fish cages, characterized by a low redox potential, high content of organic material and accumulation of nitrogenous and phosphorous compounds. Although significant environmental impacts have been reported in the literature at distances of up to 100 m from the cages, in general such impacts are reported to be localized to within 20–50 m around the cages. For farmed salmon and trout, mass balance models have been developed for nitrogen and phosphorus, indicating that 50% of the nitrogen and 28% of the phosphorus supplied with the food is wasted in dissolved form. The maximum nutrient release can be estimated from the hydrographic conditions in the immediate vicinity of the farm, such as water volume, tidal water exchange and currents. At present production levels, improvements in the feeding efficiency and feed quality of aquafeeds could reduce waste and consequent environmental impacts.

There is an increasing demand for highly skilled workers in all advanced industrialised economies. Although most jobs require occupation-specific skills to carry them out, it is widely recognised that generic skills are ever more needed by job seekers, to increase job opportunities and maintain employability; this applies to all sectors of the economy, from selling cars to undertaking marine research. Several recent European Union strategy documents emphasise the importance of generic skills. However, the apparent mismatch between the skills sets that employers seek and that job seekers offer remains a major challenge. This paper focuses on perceptions of and attitudes to generic skills training for university graduates intending to gain employment in aquaculture, fisheries or other marine sectors and presents the results of a survey administered to academics, industry representatives, students (at different stages of their academic career) and graduates. The various respondents regarded most of the 39 generic skills under investigation as important, with none classified as unimportant. However, students undertaking different types of degree (i.e. B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D.) prioritized different generic skills and the level of importance ascribed to generic skills training increased as students progressed in their university careers. On the other hand, university staff and other employers were fairly consistent in their choice of the most important generic skills. We argue that there remains a need to place generic skills and employability attributes and attitudes at the centre of the higher education curriculum.