Seaweed cultivation: Methods and problems

This paper presents an overview of the state of the art in global seaweed cultivation. It describes methodological approaches and main cultivation methods and discusses different problems arising during the application of these methods. One of the major problems is the negative effect of large-scale monoculture of seaweeds on natural benthic biocenoses. We express our views on how to tackle the most acute problems of macroalgal farming on the basis of our own data and data from other authors. The sustainable use of natural monodominant seaweed communities is shown to be preferable to mariculture. A detailed analysis is given of various mariculture models and the latest achievements in the integrated farming of seaweeds, fish, crustaceans, and mollusks.