Lake Management

Don Leonard | May 2018 | Friends of Great Salt Lake Forum

Strategies to maintain or increase the surface elevation of the Great Salt Lake.

Watch Now: 2018 Great Salt Lake Issues Forum – Don Leonard

Thomas Bosteels | September 2021 | Global Conference on Aquaculture SDG aligned Artemia Aquaculture Workshop

Sustainable harvest and cooperative management of a hypersaline resource. SDG-aligned Artemia aquaculture workshop held in Shanghai, China.

With the new research data…and with the support of the brine shrimp industry, the state of Utah established a sustainable management model.

Watch Now: Sustainable harvesting of natural Artemia resource: The Great Salt Lake as model case

Timothy Hawkes, Thomas Bosteels, Simon Wilkinson, Patrick Sorgeloos, and Michael Rust | May 5, 2022 | International Artemia Aquaculture Consortium

Webinar URL: International Artemia Aquaculture Consortium

Individual presentations:

• Introduction (Sorgeloos): https://artemia.info/news/?id=60
• History of sustainable harvest management on Great Salt Lake (Bosteels): https://artemia.info/news/?id=59
• Initial policy efforts to protect Great Salt Lake (Hawkes): https://artemia.info/news/?id=58
• Managing Salinity and Nutrients on Great Salt Lake, a cooperative approach involving multiple stakeholders (Bosteels): https://artemia.info/news/?id=57
• More mature law and policy efforts to protect water supply and enhanced stakeholder engagement (Hawkes): https://artemia.info/news/?id=56
• Q&A panel discussion: https://artemia.info/news/?id=55
• Closing Remarks (Rust): https://artemia.info/news/?id=54

Phil Brown | May 2022 | Friends of Great Salt Lake

Gilbert Bay, the expansive Artemia-producing arm of Great Salt Lake, is currently at a low stand due to drought and water use in the basin. However, a recent breach in the solid fill causeway bisecting the lake provides an unprecedented tool for managing the salinity of Gilbert Bay in the face of reduced lake volume. The causeway separates Gilbert Bay, which receives all three inflowing rivers, from Gunnison Bay, which stores a substantial portion of GSL salt away from the Artemia-producing waters of Gilbert. A 55-meter breach in the causeway constructed in 2017 included an adaptive management berm which can be modified to increase or reduce the flow of water and salt between the bays. Through salinity data collected from 2010-2021, we demonstrate the previously unobserved mass movement of salt through this causeway opening, observe an important changing relationship between salinity and surface elevation in Gilbert Bay, and present berm management strategies for keeping salinities within an acceptable range for Artemia at a variety of lake elevations.

Watch Now: Video part 3: 24′:45″

Timothy D. Hawkes | December 2022 | World Aquaculture Society – Singapore

Declining water levels at Great Salt Lake have generated significant media attention as well as speculation as to what continued declines mean for the Lake. The Lake holds particular significance for the aquaculture industry because Artemia fransciscana cysts harvested from the Lake make up more than 40% of the Artemia cysts used in global aquaculture each year.

In the past couple of years, news about lake declines have driven an unprecedented response from the Utah State Legislature,
regulatory agencies, and, increasingly, members of the U.S. Congress. In 2022 alone, the Utah State Legislature invested more
than $450 million USD in water conservation, including $50 million directly to protect the Lake and its water supply. In addition, the legislature passed ten bills related to water conservation, with six of those bills aimed directly at Great Salt Lake. The State of Utah is also finding creative ways to manage salinity to keep it within optimal ranges for Artemia and other species. These policy responses pave the way for innovative solutions that balance competing needs for water while restoring the natural resilience of the Lake ecosystem.

We present a historic overview of these and other policy responses leading up to and including the 2022 Utah legislative session. These policy changes and accompanying investments will help ensure that the Artemia and other resources remain healthy and sustainable for years to come.

Download PDF: Presentation file (PDF) 

Thomas Bosteels, Phil D. Brwon | December 2022 | World Aquaculture Society – Singapore

Great Salt Lake (GSL) is a hypersaline terminal lake located in northern Utah, USA. Multiple years of research on GSL strongly suggest that harvest management, nutrients and salinity are the primary drivers of the Artemia population on the lake. We review the implementation of technical solutions that combine to optimize Artemia harvest management, nutrient inflows, and salinities to support a healthy Artemia population in GSL.

Management of the Artemia cyst harvest began in 1997, and is based upon a modified Ricker recruitment curve in which leaving a post-harvest escapement stock of 21 cysts per liter results in optimal cyst densities the next autumn (Figure 1). This criteria has been re-evaluated annually, incorporating the latest year’s data. Harvest results spanning the last 3 decades are presented to demonstrate the results of this adaptive harvest management model.

Download PDF: Presentation file (PDF) 

Brad T. Marden, Thomas Bosteels, Phil D. Brown | December 2022 | World Aquaculture Society – Singapore

The ongoing drought in the western USA has resulted in continual declines in watershed inputs to the Great Salt Lake (GSL), leading to increasing salinity and lowered volume of the GSL. The decline in volume and increased salinity has had multiple consequences on the GSL ecosystem with aquatic taxa and dependent avian species exhibiting stress related impacts whereas some organisms such as the resident Artemia are demonstrating greater resiliency to salinity changes. Physiological changes such as alterations in per capita reproductive output, reduced size, mobilization of biochemical moderators of osmotic stress, shifts in dormancy termination, and alterations in temporal reproductive cycles illuminate the influence of increasing salinity on the Artemia population.

Within the broad scope of physiological transitions among the resident Artemia there are indications of adaptive responses that have afforded population level effective responses. Reproductive output has shifted temporally from the onset of cold inclement weather in fall to maximal production during late spring and early summer via exploitation of available algal resources. Termination of dormancy among Artemia cysts exhibited an alteration with dormancy ceasing in early summer thus significantly shortening the duration of diapause. Total population level reproductive output has resulted in densities of cysts similar to, or greater than, years exhibiting more ‘favorable’ conditions. Concerns remain about the effect of reduced volume on the GSL ecosystem, but presently the Artemia population is exhibiting resilience.

Download PDF: Presentation file (PDF)

Phil D. Brown, Thomas Bosteels, Brad T. Marden | December 2022 | World Aquaculture Society – Singapore

Gilbert Bay, the expansive Artemia-producing arm of Great Salt Lake, is currently at a low stand due to drought and water use in the basin. However, a recent breach in the solid fill causeway bisecting the lake provides an unprecedented tool for managing the salinity of Gilbert Bay in the face of reduced lake volume. The causeway separates Gilbert Bay, which receives all three inflowing rivers, from Gunnison Bay, which stores a substantial portion of GSL salt away from the Artemia-producing waters of Gilbert. A 55-meter breach in the causeway constructed in 2017 included an adaptive management berm which can be modified to increase or reduce the flow of water and salt between the bays. Through salinity data collected from 2010-2021, we demonstrate the previously unobserved mass movement of salt through this causeway opening, observe an important changing relationship between salinity and surface elevation in Gilbert Bay, and present berm management strategies for keeping salinities within an acceptable range for Artemia at a variety of lake elevations.

In the 5 years preceding the breach, the relationship between Gilbert Bay salinity and elevation was linear and consistent with the annual concentration and dilution of a stable salt load. This changed in 2017, when high runoff coupled with the opening of the breach to force nearly 17% of the Gilbert Bay salt load into Gunnison Bay. The salinity-elevation relationship was lowered, resulting in more dilute salinities. The salt load of Gilbert Bay began increasing measurably again in 2020, demonstrating a return flow of Gunnison Bay heavy brine through the opening. In response, and under advisement of a scientific panel, management agencies modified the berm to restrict the return flow with the goal of preserving salinities conducive to the Artemia population. As of September 2022, return flow of heavy brine has reportedly been almost entirely halted.

This multiyear bidirectional transfer of salt mass across the causeway illustrates remarkable potential for managing salinity for Artemia during periods of limited river inflows in the near and long term. Spring runoff can export salt from Gilbert Bay to reduce salinities in individual years, with the berm utilized to prevent return flow of heavy brine. In the long term, existing hydrologic models can be refined to provide berm geometries that optimize salinity across multiple lake elevation scenarios.

Download PDF: Presentation file (PDF)

Thomas Bosteels | May 2023 | International Artemia Aquaculture Consortium

Download PDF: Presentation file 

NACA Newsletter – Published by the Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific, Bangkok, Thailand
ISSN 0115-8503 | Volume XXXVIII, No. 3 | May 2023
Download Newsletter: Newsletter PDF

Patrick Sorgeloos | May 2024 | Friends of the Great Salt Lake Issues Forum

The Great Salt Lake in Utah is not only one of the biggest salt lakes in the world, but also by far the most important source of brine shrimp Artemia, the sole zooplankton developing in dense monocultures at high salinities where food competitors or predators cannot survive.

Artemia plays crucial roles in wildlife survival (as food for millions of migrating birds) but particularly also in the fish/shellfish farming (aquaculture) industry. Each autumn and winter several thousand tons of Artemia cysts (0.5-mm inactive embryos in late gastrula stage) are harvested from the lake, processed, dried, and packed in cans to be shipped around the world to fish and shrimp hatcheries. The microscopic, small Artemia babies (called nauplii) that can be hatched out from these “dried cysts” within 24-hrs incubation in seawater are used as a suitable substitute for natural live plankton in the feeding of a wide variety of marine and freshwater crustaceans and fishes.

Over the past decades hatchery aquaculture has expanded rapidly on all continents and GSL Artemia cysts are responsible for maybe 40 to 50% of the world provision of cysts, used in larval rearing of over 900 billion fries of different aquatic species that eventually yield more than 10 million tons of seafood produced in the aquaculture industry.

Over the past 20 years, local government authorities as well as private companies have been involved in a multidisciplinary effort to better understand the hydrology, biology, and ecology of the Great Salt Lake. This has resulted in the formulation of specific legislative measures and management practices to ensure a sustainable harvest of this important biological resource and to safeguard the long-term future of the Great Salt Lake.

Download PDF: Google Drive presentation file

Watch Video: Video at minute 29:16

Thomas Bosteels | May 2024 | Friends of Great Salt Lake Forum

Artemia and more specifically Great Salt Lake Artemia play a crucial role in the sustainable production of marine fish and shrimp worldwide. Great Salt Lake produces an estimated 40 to 50% of the worlds Artemia cysts and is therefore vital to support sustainable marine aquaculture production. Existing research strongly suggests that salinity and harvest management play a crucial role in sustaining a healthy Artemia population on Great Salt Lake. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) first implemented the adaptive Artemia harvest management in the late 1990’s. The results of which have been described in detail. More recently, the Utah Division of Forestry Fire and State Lands (FFSL) is actively managing the adaptive management berm separating Gunnison Bay from Gilbert Bay in an effort to manage salinity in support of the Gilbert Bay biota. Recent publications describing changes in salt mass in Gilbert Bay are supportive of these management actions. We present several decades of industry harvest data supporting the sustainable harvest management as implemented by the DWR as well as more recent Artemia population data, Artemia cyst hatchability data and salt mass data in support of the salinity management actions recently implemented by the Utah FFSL.

Download PDF: Google Drive presentation file

Watch Video: Video at minute 47:00

Thomas Bosteels, Timothy Hawkes | September 2024 | International Artemia Aquaculture Consortium

FAO Rome Italy: Safeguarding Salt Lake Brine Shrimp Artemia Resources for Aquaculture.

Training Project organized by the “Alliance of International Science Organizations” ANSO in cooperation with the “Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences of Belgium” RAOS, the “UN Food and Agriculture Organization” FAO, and the “International Artemia Aquaculture Consortium” IAAC.

Watch Video: Presentation link 
Announcement: Online announcement

Brad Marden | September 2024 | LARVI Conference

First International Artemia Aquaculture Consortium Conference, Ostend, Belgium: September 6, 2024, during the LARVI conference.

Watch Video: Presentation link 
Announcement: Online announcement

Phil Brown | September 2024 | LARVI Conference

First International Artemia Aquaculture Consortium Conference, Ostend, Belgium: September 6, 2024, during the LARVI conference.

Watch Video: Presentation link 
Announcement: Online announcement

Timothy Hawkes | September 2025 | Global Shrimp Forum

Global Shrimp Forum, Wild caught shrimp side event. Sustainability of wild capture shrimp fisheries

Download PDF: 

Announcement: Speaker announcement

Thomas Bosteels, Phil D. Brown, Brad Marden, Timothy Hawkes | November 2025 | World Aquaculture Society – Hyderbad and Chan Tho University

During the last three decades aquaculture has expanded rapidly. In 2022, for the first time in history, aquaculture surpassed capture fisheries with the production of more than 94 million tons of aquatic animals. Artemia has played, a crucial role in the sustainable production of marine fish and shrimp worldwide, and continues to do so. Annually, more than 10 million tons of marine fish and shrimp production relies heavily on Artemia, and it is therefore crucial that we continue to implement sustainable management of all Artemia resources worldwide.

Today, Great Salt Lake produces approximately 40% of the world’s Artemia cysts and is therefore vital to support sustainable marine aquaculture production. Adaptive management of the Great Salt Lake Artemia resource started in the mid-1990s with the creation of the Great Salt Lake Ecosystem program by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. Three decades of research focused on the four primary pillars of sustainable management of the Great Salt Lake Artemia resource i.e., the implementation of adaptive harvest management, nutrient management, salinity management and water supply.

We provide an overview of the extremophile Artemia’s habitats, its lifecycle and role in marine aquaculture and briefly review the efforts implemented by multiple Utah State agencies and the Utah State legislature on the four primary aspects of hypersaline lake management. We further detail the most recent implementation of active salinity management by the Utah Department of Forestry Fire and State Lands, which examines salt mass and salinity data in support of these management actions as well as the positive outcome on the Great Salt Lake Artemia population. Finally, we contrast the Great Salt Lake cyst production against other world resources and conclude that efforts to manage Artemia resources have resulted in an increase in the worldwide production of Artemia cysts in support of marine aquaculture.

Download PDF: Presentation file

Erik Van Ballaer, Thomas Bosteels, Phil Brown, Brad Marden, Timothy Hawkes | June 2026 | World Aquaculture Society – Singapore

During the last three decades, aquaculture has expanded rapidly. In 2022, for the first time in history, aquaculture surpassed capture fisheries with the production of more than 94 million tons of aquatic crops. Today, more than 10 million tons of marine fish and shrimp production rely on Artemia as an essential component in early-stage feeding. It is therefore crucial that a steady and adequate Artemia supply can be ensured to sustain the continuing growth of this industry.
Artemia supply sustainability needs a 2-way approach: (1) maximize the production potential of Artemia and (2) optimize co-feeding practices of Artemia in aquaculture production.

Today, the Great Salt Lake produces approximately 40% of the world’s Artemia cysts and is therefore vital to support sustainable marine aquaculture production. As a case study and a pioneering example of possible approaches to natural Artemia resources in other parts of the world, we describe the efforts implemented by multiple Utah State agencies and private entities, and the Utah State legislature on the primary aspects of hypersaline lake management, and the consequent positive outcome on the Artemia population in the Great Salt Lake. We summarize three decades of research and implementation focused on the four primary pillars of sustainable management of the Great Salt Lake Artemia resource, i.e., adaptive harvest management, nutrient management, salinity management, and water supply. We further present recent efforts focused on nutrient management, legislative actions, and funding in support of the lake.

The Great Salt Lake cyst production is contrasted against other world resources, and we conclude that efforts to manage Artemia resources resulted in a significant increase in the production of Artemia cysts in support of marine aquaculture.

Watch Now: Presentation video