Abstract—Cyprus’ offshore aquaculture industry has promising prospects taking into account that Cyprus is an island. Its production trend is increasing overtaking bigger countries such Greece and Italy. However, current mooring systems seem to be under-performing acting as obstacles for its future development. Furthermore, shallow coastal waters scarcity due to competing industries dictates future development to come by moving further from shore exposing fish farms and subsequently mooring systems to harsher environmental loadings. It is, therefore, of paramount importance to design mooring systems based on engineering and scientific principles and leave behind the present “trial and error” methods. This paper presents the current state of Cyprus’ offshore aquaculture industry and focuses of its mooring designs by proposing a new methodology for designing more reliable systems, hence ensuring its future. Keywords—Environmental loadings, mooring systems design, numerical modeling, offshore aquaculture I. INTRODUCTION FFSHORE aquaculture economic activity was introduced in Cyprus over the past twenty years. Cyprus’ government policy, initiated in 2007, aimed to promote this economic activity and reach the annual production level of 10000tn over the next seven years from 2500tn, in 2008. The Cyprus Department of Fisheries and Marine Research (DFMR) latest report indicate that in 2010 the total aquaculture production rose to 4077tns compared to 3390tns in 2009, a more than 20% increase corresponding to just above 20mil Euros [1]. Similarly, the 2009 Fisheries and Aquaculture Statistics report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) shows that Cyprus has the second largest increasing trend behind Turkey, in a 10 year period starting from 2000 and ending in 2009, overtaking significantly larger Mediterranean countries such as Greece and Italy [2], as depicted in Fig. 1. V. Vassiliou, M. Menicou and M. Chalambides are with Frederick Research Center, 1303 Nicosia, Cyprus (e-mails: eng.vv@fit.ac.cy; eng.mm@fit.ac.cy; bus.chm@fit.ac.cy). J. DeCew and I. Tsukrov are with the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, US (e- mails: Jud.Decew@unh.edu; Igor.Tsukrov@unh.edu) This work is based on a sponsored research project funded by the Cyprus’ Research Promotion Foundation and the European Commission’s Structural Funds with the protocol number ΤΕΧΝΟΛΟΓΙΑ/ΜΗΧΑΝ/0308(ΒΙΕ)/02. -40% -20% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 120% 140% 160% 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 % Change (base year 2000) Cyprus Greece Italy Turkey Israel Fig. 1 Aquaculture production of marine fish Nevertheless, as the second quarter of 2012 is closing in the target of 10000tn by 2013 seems to be unachievable. Scarce available coast lines and competing tourist economic activity that prohibit materialisation of this policy are some of reasons but other more practical ones are also to be blamed. In particular, in recent years one in three offshore aquaculture companies in Cyprus suffered severe losses and ceased operations due to environmental conditions. This accident rate is excessively high when compared to Northern European offshore aquaculture industry. In fact, taking into account that Cyprus is located in an isolated “protected” area of the Mediterranean Sea which wears out any major environmental phenomena, such high failure rates signify that current mooring systems seem to be underperforming. This coupled with the fact that offshore aquaculture economic activity needs to be developed further away from coast in order to tackle the problems of competing industries, further highlights the need for more robust and reliable mooring designs. Consequently, this paper examines the current state of Cypriot aquaculture installations and their engineering aspect and proposes a more scientific structured approach for the development of more reliable mooring scenarios. II. OVERVIEW OF CYPRUS OFFSHORE AQUACULTURE Based on the 2010 report, in Cyprus there are seven licensed companies that operate offshore aquaculture fish farms. Their main product portfolio consists of sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) and sea bream (Sparus aurata) although on a commercial basis blue fin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) is also cultured and in much smaller quantities the species sharp snout bream (Puntazzo puntazzo), red porgy (Pagrus pagrus), pandora (Pagellus erythrinus), and rabbit fish (Siganus rivulatus) are also cultured [3]. V. Vassiliou, M. Menicou, M. Charalambides, J. DeCew and I. Tsukrov Cyprus’ Offshore Aquaculture Mooring Systems: Current Status and Future Development O World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Vol:6, No:7, 2012 411 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 6(7) 2012 ISNI:0000000091950263 Open Science Index, Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Vol:6, No:7, 2012 publications.waset.org/1305/pdf