With the expansion of aquaculture in many countries, the importance and crucial role of engineering expertise in sound developmental work, have come into sharper focus. Poor selection of sites, and defective design and construction of facilities have often been the cause of failures in the past. The shortage of qualified and experienced aquaculture engineers is felt the world over, but is particularly serious in developing countries. Since institutionalized training in aquaculture engineering is very scarce, ADCP decided to organize a series of ad-hoc inter-regional courses, to impart specialized instruction in the subject to qualified civil, irrigation or agricultural engineers. For a number of reasons, including problems of finding a suitable location and institution, where training in both inland and coastal aquaculture engineering could be organized, the first course was restricted to inland aqua-culture. It was held from 6 June to 3 September 1983 in Hungary, in association with the ADCP Inter-regional Aquaculture Centre in Szarvas. The Government of Hungary, besides hosting the course, offered the cooperation of its institutions, especially the Institute for Postgraduate Education of Agricultural Engineers and Leaders, and the Research Centre for Water Resources Development, in Budapest. The main objective of the course was to build up a small core of aquaculture engineers in selected developing countries, to assist in planning and execution of development projects and the establishment of institutional facilities. A total of 20 candidates, who were assured of opportunities for working in aquaculture development projects, attended the course.
This volume contains the texts of lectures presented at the course. Mr. C. H. Clay and Mr. J. Kövári assisted in editing the manuscripts. Although it is recognized that further editing could improve the texts, they are published in the present form to make them available without further delay, for use in connection with other training programmes or as a reference source.
T. V. R. Pillay
Rome
October 1984
