Aquaculture is the fastest-growing animal food production sector globally and plays a critical role in food security, livelihoods, and economic development. As the sector continues to expand, ensuring high standards of animal welfare has become both a scientific priority and an increasingly important expectation of producers, retailers, policymakers, investors, and consumers. Fish and crustacean welfare are now recognised as a fundamental component of sustainable aquaculture, with implications not only for ethical food production, but also for animal health, resilience, productivity, product quality, environmental sustainability, and social licence to operate.

Over the past two decades, significant advances have been made in our understanding of the biological, behavioural, physiological, cognitive, and affective dimensions of welfare in aquatic animals. However, a major challenge remains: translating this growing body of scientific knowledge into practical, reliable, and scalable tools that can be implemented under commercial farming conditions. While numerous welfare indicators have been proposed, there is still a need for greater validation, harmonisation, and adoption of operational welfare assessment frameworks that can support continuous improvement across diverse production systems, species, and geographical regions.

Operational Welfare Indicators (OWIs) offer a particularly valuable approach to addressing this challenge. By providing measurable and practical indicators that can be routinely assessed on farms, OWIs enable producers and stakeholders to monitor welfare outcomes, identify risks, benchmark performance, and implement targeted interventions to improve animal welfare throughout the production cycle.

This Research Topic aims to advance the science and application of operational welfare assessment in aquaculture, with a particular focus on species of global importance such as Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), Pangasius (Pangasianodon hypophthalmus), and farmed shrimp. We are especially interested in research that contributes to the development, validation, refinement, and implementation of operational welfare frameworks within major production regions, including Brazil, Honduras, Egypt, and Southeast Asia, where these sectors continue to grow and evolve.

A key inspiration for this collection is the welfare assessment framework proposed by Pedrazzani et al. (2023), which established one of the most comprehensive operational protocols for evaluating Nile tilapia welfare throughout the production cycle. This work represents a significant milestone in bridging the gap between welfare science and practical on-farm application, demonstrating how evidence-based welfare indicators can support management decisions and drive continuous welfare improvement.

Building upon this foundation, we invite submissions that expand, validate, adapt, compare, or complement existing welfare assessment frameworks, while also encouraging novel approaches applicable to other species, production systems, and cultural contexts. We are particularly interested in studies that strengthen the evidence base underpinning operational welfare indicators and contribute to the development of robust welfare assessment methodologies that can be adopted by industry and integrated into assurance, certification, benchmarking, and sustainability programmes.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

-Development and validation of Operational Welfare Indicators (OWIs);

-Welfare thresholds, scoring systems, and benchmarking methodologies;

-Species-specific welfare assessment frameworks for fish and crustaceans;

-Environmental, health, nutritional, behavioural, physiological, cognitive, and affective welfare indicators;

-Precision aquaculture technologies, sensors, artificial intelligence, machine vision, and automated monitoring systems for welfare assessment;

-Welfare assessment during critical production stages, including hatchery, nursery, grow-out, transport, handling, harvest, and slaughter;

-Relationships between animal welfare, productivity, health, biosecurity, product quality, sustainability, and economic performance;

-Welfare assessment under different farming systems and production environments;

-Welfare implications of emerging technologies and production intensification;

-Decision-support tools for welfare management and continuous improvement programmes;

-Industry implementation strategies, training programmes, and capacity-building initiatives;

-Welfare assurance schemes, certification standards, auditing approaches, and regulatory developments;

-Case studies demonstrating successful welfare improvements at farm, supply-chain, or national levels;

-Knowledge transfer mechanisms that facilitate the adoption of welfare science by producers, veterinarians, policymakers, and other stakeholders.

We particularly encourage interdisciplinary research that bridges fundamental science and real-world application, helping to build practical solutions that can improve welfare outcomes at scale. Contributions that generate evidence relevant to commercial aquaculture operations, especially within rapidly developing tilapia, Pangasius, and shrimp sectors, are strongly encouraged.

An important reference for this Research Topic is the article by Pedrazzani et al. (2023):
Operational Welfare Assessment Protocol for Nile Tilapia

We welcome submissions of Original Research, Reviews, Methods Articles, Case Studies, Perspectives, and Policy and Practice Reviews. Through this Research Topic, we aim to foster collaboration among researchers, veterinarians, producers, technology developers, certification bodies, industry stakeholders, and policymakers, accelerating the development and adoption of science-based operational welfare assessment frameworks for aquatic animals.

Topic Editors Murilo Quintiliano and Sara Barrento are employed by FAI Farms. All other Topic Editors declare no competing interests with regards to the Research Topic subject.

Are you interested in contributing a manuscript to this Research Topic?

Advancing Operational Welfare Assessment for Farmed Fish and Crustaceans: From Science to Practice