Aquatic Bioeconomy: Measuring Efficiency, Sustainability, and Innovation in Marine and Coastal Systems

The aquatic bioeconomy focuses on the sustainable use of marine and freshwater biological resources to produce food, feed, bioenergy, and bioproducts while safeguarding ecosystems and communities. As countries expand aquaculture, fisheries, and marine biotechnology, robust measurement of efficiency, productivity, and sustainability is essential to inform policy and investment. Integrating environmental, social, and economic dimensions helps reveal how innovation, governance, and ecological constraints shape aquatic value chains and coastal livelihoods. Recent advances in data (remote sensing, AIS/VMS, eDNA) and analytics (machine learning, digital twins) enable finer-grained, comparative assessments across systems and countries. This Research Topic provides a coherent forum to consolidate methods and evidence, promoting transparency, comparability, and policy relevance to accelerate sustainable, inclusive growth in marine and coastal bioeconomies.

This Research Topic aims to advance rigorous, comparable measurement of efficiency, sustainability, and innovation across marine and freshwater systems. We seek to address key gaps: fragmented metrics across studies, limited cross-country comparability, underrepresentation of equity and small-scale producers, and insufficient integration of environmental externalities and risk. We invite contributions that develop or apply analytical frameworks linking biophysical processes, production economics, governance, and social outcomes; quantify performance using frontier and productivity approaches (e.g., DEA, SFA, Malmquist indices); and integrate life-cycle assessment (including hybrid LCA) to capture supply-chain and circularity impacts. We encourage methodological innovation using novel datasets (remote sensing, AIS/VMS and telemetry, eDNA), digital tools (digital twins), and machine learning for frontier estimation and decision support. Priority is given to studies that enable benchmarking across regions and time, provide open data and code, and deliver actionable insights for policy and management. Ultimately, the goal is to inform climate-smart, equitable, and innovation-driven transitions in the blue bioeconomy.



We welcome studies on: efficiency and productivity in aquaculture and fisheries (DEA, SFA, Malmquist); sustainable aquaculture and circular practices (IMTA, waste valorization, precision aquaculture); marine biotechnology and bio-based product innovation (techno-economic and sustainability assessments); valuation of ecosystem services and natural capital; blue carbon and climate-smart aquaculture (mitigation, adaptation, MRV); policy and governance for marine bioeconomy transitions; socioeconomic implications of digitalization (data governance, labor dynamics); integration of renewable energy and biorefineries with ports and coastal infrastructure; and open, reproducible benchmarking across countries. Manuscript types include original research, methods, reviews, data papers, policy and perspective articles, and brief research reports. We particularly encourage equity-focused analyses addressing small-scale producers, gender, Indigenous and community rights, and coastal livelihoods. Submissions should prioritize transparency, comparability, and reproducibility (e.g., accessible datasets, code, and clear methodological documentation).

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Aquatic Bioeconomy, Blue Economy, Aquaculture Efficiency, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA), Marine Biotechnology, Sustainable Fisheries, Ecosystem Services, Blue Carbon, Circular Economy

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.