Eliciting expert opinion on GIS use for surveillance and disease response in the aquatic animal health domain

Since the 1980s, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) have been integrated into animal farming technologies for purposes such as enhancing production performances and veterinary epidemiology. In aquaculture, however, there seems to be limited application of GIS, and its potential is widely overlooked, especially for aquatic animal health management. This study describes the results of a world expert opinion elicitation on the current implementation of GIS for surveillance and disease response in the aquatic animal health domain. An online survey was submitted in autumn 2023, including both closed and open questions. With a response rate of 41.2% (21 out of 51), the answer analysis highlighted that, especially when knowledge and practical skills in geomatics, information technology and remote sensing are required, a group of advanced GIS technologies is underutilized (web-based solutions, SDI, citizen science). An artificial intelligence-based inductive text analysis was performed confirming a limited exploitation of GIS mainly due to management (financial support, training, collaboration) and methodology (data suitability, modelling analyses and integration) constraints. Furthermore, despite acknowledging the importance of planning in GIS project development, most experts did not follow any written or unwritten procedures that, according to their answers, should in fact encompass sustainable principles (integration of GIS solutions into other applications or processes), and reuse of resources (guidelines and best practices, data, methods, layouts). Shared guidelines for developing GIS projects, identifying available data sources, and long-term-maintenance planning of GIS and related geospatial data, should be pursued for using GIS technologies more effectively in the aquatic animal health domain.