1.

Sumberg, J. and Giller, K.E. (2022) ‘What is “conventional” agriculture?’, Global Food
Security, 32, 100617. Available from: DOI: 10.1016/j.gfs.2022.100617.

This piece of article was chosen primarily because it suited and explained my
intention of this paragraph of the introduction well, which was to restrict the
boundary of ‘conventional farming’ in order for clarification and clear away any
confusion from the readers. This is because this article has put forward the apparent
issue with the term ‘conventional farming’ being not defined properly in a lot of
detail.

The study itself is very current, as it was published in 2022.

A total of 87 citations are relatively good within only a year.

Boretti, A. and Rosa, L. (2019) ‘Reassessing the projections of the World Water Development
Report’, npj Clean Water, 2(1). Available from: DOI: 10.1038/s41545-019-0039-9.

The underlined information in this article fit perfectly with my intention to use statistics to

illustrate the severity of population expansion in the foreseeable future; so to put emphasis
on my point of how resource wastage in conventional farming will bound to cause serious
problems as the human population will reach such a high level in just 2050 — which will put
strain on the farming system further and will cause more resource wastage if we continue
with more intensive conventional farming to feed more people instead of switching to more
sustainable options (as I made a prediction of an increase in food demand based on the
increase in water demand discussed in this article). Although the authors mainly talked
about water resources, the specific statistics quoted fit my purpose to cite this article (as
mentioned above) well. Additionally, this is a recent research so its prediction on the
population growth is up to date and is inline with the current circumstances (eg. the overuse
of conventional farming nowadays). Furthermore, being publish on the Nature journal and
being cited 1039 times with 197k accesses, the authority of this piece of data is of high
reliability.

Location of this citation in literature review:

Goddek, S., Delaide, B., Mankasingh, U., Ragnarsdottir., Jijakli, H. and Thorarinsdottir
R. (2015) ‘Challenges of sustainable and commercial aquaponics’, Sustainability, 7(4), pp.
4199–4224. Available from: DOI: 10.3390/su7044199.

This piece of research was chosen to help me to write a general summarisation of the
aquaponic farming system to introduce the readers about this relatively new construction in
agriculture. Personally, I chose this specific piece of research because I was very interested in
its main author — Simon Goddek. I consider him as a very experienced professional in this
field as not only he has published nearly 20 pieces of research on the subject of aquaponics,
but also, he has written a book specifically on aquaponics named ‘Aquaponics Food
Production System’. Having such large quantity of publication (in such a niche topic)
highlights his expertise. This is clearly demonstrated in the ‘Principles of aquaponics’ section
in this specific piece of research, where he explained the mechanisms behind aquaponics in
detail and clarity, which hugely inspired my summarisation of aquaponics in my introduction.
Furthermore, a total of 530 citations shows the approval by other professionals in the field,
on his accurate description of the aquaponic system.

Location of this citation in introduction:

Zhang, Y., Long, H., Wang, M., Li, Y., Ma, L., Chen, K., Zhang, Y. and Jiang, T. (2020) ‘The
hidden mechanism of chemical fertiliser overuse in rural China’, Habitat International, 102,
pp. 102-210. DOI: 10.1016/j.habitatint.2020.102210.

In order to enhance my point on the fact that resource wastage is very evident and real in
conventional agriculture, I chose this case study which highlighted how farmers deliberately
overuse fertilisers in order to ensure yield in conventional farming. The result of this study
mirrors that the farmers don’t really have a choice in putting excess fertiliser into the open
field of a conventional farming system since they feel the need to do so in order to
compensate for the resource leakage problem with the open-field construction of
conventional farming, even though most of them are very aware of the impact this has on
the environment as highlighted. This piece of research helped me to put forward how the
closed system of aquaponics can avoid this problem with fertiliser leakage further down my
dissertation, the contrast between the two systems on this issue also helped me to present
the significance of studying aquaponics for sustainability. Despite not having a lot of
citations, this piece of information was still considered as reliable because I personally know
the prevalent problem of fertiliser overuse in my country, where this study was based on.
Finally, this piece of research did not have sponsorships linked to any agricultural produce
manufactures, but only with two academic institutes — which enhances its reliability.

Location of research in literature review:

Wurtsbaugh, W.A., Paerl, H.W. and Dodds, W.K. (2019) ‘Nutrients, eutrophication and
harmful algal blooms along the freshwater to marine continuum’, WIREs Water, 6(5).
Available from: DOI: 10.1002/wat2.1373.

Hutchins, D.A. and Capone, D.G. (2022) ‘The marine nitrogen cycle: New Developments and
Global Change’, Nature Reviews Microbiology, 20(7), pp. 401–414. Available from: DOI: 10.10
38/s41579-022-00687-z.

Wurtsbaugh’s research was chosen to illustrate both the threat to our drinking water/ food
and the financial drawbacks due to a specific problem linked with the leakage of resources in
conventional (fruit) farming — eutrophication. I used this research to highlight the fact that
resource leakage with the conventional system can not only affect the environment, but it
can also impact negatively in aspects that are unexpected yet very much linked to every one
of us. This implies the large extent resource leakage can have on our society. A large number
of 628 citations also verify the reliability of this research. In parallel, Hutchins’ research was
chosen to briefly state the effect of eutrophication has on marine organisms to illustrate the
fact that resource (nutrients) wastage in conventional farming can also have effects on
animals, not only on the non-living environment, resources used by humans and the
financial loss of humans. So, the disadvantage of conventional fruit farming can therefore be
explained in multiple perspectives using these citations, raising more awareness of readers.
Hutchins’ research is also very recent. Despite being only published last year, it has already
got 106 citations, which is very impressive. This confirms the reliability of the research as a
result of the approval from the citations gained.

Locations of these two citations in literature review:

Fang, Y., Hu, Z., Zou, Y., Fan, J., Wang Q., Zhu Z. (2017) ‘Increasing economic and
environmental benefits of media-based aquaponics through optimizing aeration
pattern’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 162, pp. 1111–1117. Available from: DOI:
10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.06.158.

Nishanth, D., Alshamsi M., Alkaabi, A. M., Alkaabi, A. H., Alnuaimi S., Nair., C and Jaleel
A. (2024) ‘Aquaponics as a climate‐smart technology for Sustainable Food Production: A
comparison with conventional production system in United Arab Emirates’, Journal of the
World Aquaculture Society [Preprint]. Available from: DOI: 10.1111/jwas.13049.

These two pieces of research were chosen for the same reason, that is to give statistics to
provide evidence on just how much aquaponics can save resources (energy and water)
based on the experiments performed by either research teams. Fang’s research was chosen
due to the fact that her research was very much independent, with only fundings from her
university and an academic institution with no business linked to the farming industry, this
shows her research was objective. The number of citations, although not as much as Simon
Goddek’s research, is considerably large with 73 citations, especially where this is an
unpopular field of agriculture. The currency of the research is also relatively good. On the
other hand, Nishanth’s research was chosen for its currency (published this year) and for its
in-depth experimental method adopted to conclude the results cited, which I personally find
very methodical and reliable. In addition, their conclusion of aquaponic system can have
greater than 90% water reuse is very impressive and certainly looks good on paper to be
presented to the readers.

Locations of citations in literature review:

Abbey, M., Anderson, N. O., Yue, C., Short G., Schermann, M., Nicholas, P., Venturelli, P. and
Vickers, Z. (2019). ‘An Analysis of Strawberry (Fragaria χananassa) Productivity in Northern
Latitudinal Aquaponic Growing Conditions.’ Journal of the American Pomological
Society, 73(1), pp.22-37. PDF available from: URL: https://assets.people.bsu.edu/wp-
content/uploads/sites/3/2021/10/19133848/AbbeyEtal2019a.pdf (accessed on 13. 02.

2024).

Data from Abbey’s research was chosen for a comparison of the yield of aquaponic
strawberries to the yield of conventional strawberries from my primary research. This
particular piece of research was chosen for a variety of reasons. Firstly, Abbey’s research
team has chosen the exact same species of fruit as my subject of investigation in my primary
research. Not only that, but they also had a group with the same kind of fish utilized in the
aquaponic system as mine. The only difference is that their ‘tray ebb and flow system’ also
involved moving water and tray structures which honestly wouldn’t make much of a
difference.

This piece of research was chosen for its relavence, it verifies my yield of aquaponic
straberries