Abstract

The diverse aquaculture sector makes important contributions towards achieving the SDGs/Agenda 2030, and can increasingly do so in the future. It's important role for food security, nutrition, livelihoods, economies, and cultures is not clearly visible in the Agenda 21 declaration. This may partly refect the state of development of policies for aquaculture compared with its terrestrial counterpart, agriculture, and possibly also because aquaculture production has historically originated from a few key hotspot regions/countries. This review highlights the need for better integration of aquaculture in global food system dialogues. Unpacking aquaculture's diverse functions and generation of values at multiple spatiotemporal scales enables better understanding of aquaculture's present and future potential contribution to the SDGs. Aquaculture is a unique sector that encompasses all aquatic ecosystems (freshwater, brackish/estuarine and marine) and is also tightly interconnected with terrestrial ecosystems through e.g. feed resources and other dependencies. Understanding environmental, social and economic characteristics of the multi-faceted nature of aquaculture provides for more context specifc solutions for addressing both opportunities and challenges for its future developm