The increasing global importance of aquaculture as a food-producing activity is mirrored by the continuing decline in wild fish stocks. With this explosion in aquaculture production have come attendant environmental problems. Owing to its tight linkage with natural ecosystems, it can be argued that aquaculture has the potential to have a much more profound impact on environmental quality than terrestrial farming systems of equal size. Moreover, it can also be argued that to become sustainable, practioners of aquaculture must place more emphasis on recognising these linkages, and protecting the ecosystems which nuture and sustain their industry.

To address these issues, a conference titled 'Aquaculture and Water Resource Management' was held at the University of Stirling from 21-25 June 1994, and was attended by over 120 delegates from more than 20 different countries. Many of the contributed papers presented at the conference have now been published. This present volume contains the papers presented by eight 'scene setting' invited speakers, dealing with a range of scientific and managment issues relating to the conference topic.- (taken from the Preface)