Aquaculture has been recognised for achieving multiple United Nations Sustainable Development Goals; its further growth depends on understanding, and responding to, societal perceptions in a broader context. Thus, this study aims to understand societal perceptions of aquaculture through a scoping review and media analysis. A scoping review identified 151 academic studies for inclusion in our five identified research clusters: (1) social acceptability, (2) growth and development, (3) media coverage, (4) sustainable aquaculture, and (5) consumer perceptions. Further, newspaper articles (n = 100) were sampled from the United Kingdom, Denmark, France, Spain, Turkey, and China; elsewhere all articles identified were included (Poland, 79; Hungary, 29; India, 70). The findings suggest that scientific and newspaper articles tend to present sustainability aspects in a simplified form. Key stakeholder groups include fish farming enterprises, civil society, governmental officials, scientists, and business leaders both within aquaculture value chains (retailers/wholesalers, technology industry) and outside of them (fisheries, tourism). Also, other stakeholders included the public (indigenous groups, residents, consumers). The stakeholder groups perceived aquaculture differently and depending on the circumstances and context, their perceptions ranged from positive to negative. Many factors influenced their perceptions, including aquaculture's impact on multiple sustainability dimensions, knowledge, transparency, personal interests, types, and location of aquaculture practises, regulations, experience, and sociodemographic characteristics such as age, gender, education, and income. We recommend that aquaculture practitioners focus on context‐specific multifaceted strategies—prioritising transparency, communication, and accountability—and provide essential knowledge to ensure that societal perceptions of aquaculture are based on accurate, empirical information.

In the EU, aquaculture ponds cover an area of 360,000 ha and are a crucial part of the rural landscape. As many ecosystem services (e.g., habitats for protected wildlife, nutrient cycling, etc.) are correlated with the proportion of reed beds relative to open-water areas, it is important in environmental studies to be able to accurately estimate the extent and the temporal dynamics of reed cover. Here, we propose a method for mapping reed cover in fish ponds from freely available Sentinel-2 imagery using the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), which we applied to Hungary, the third largest carp producer in the EU. The dynamics of reed cover in Hungarian fish ponds mapped using satellite imagery show a high degree of agreement with the ground-truth points, and when compared with data reported in the annual aquaculture reports for Hungary, it was found that the calculation of reed cover based on the NDVI-based approach was more consistent than the estimates provided in the report. We discuss possible applications of this remote sensing technique in estimating reed-like vegetation cover in fish ponds and the possible use of the results for climate change studies and ecosystem services assessment.

This paper presents geospatial datasets, figures, and tables illustrating i) the location and total area of fish farms under cultivation; and ii) the spatiotemporal dynamics of reed cover in Hungarian fishponds generated from the published study of Sharma et al., [1]. Preliminary data for fish farm locations were obtained from the Institute of Agricultural Economics (AKI), followed by significant refinement based on high-resolution Google Earth Pro-imagery. The fishpond area dataset was validated against the values reported in annual statistical reports on aquaculture. In order to map reed vegetation freely available Sentinel-2 imagery (between 2017 and 2021) was accessed from the Copernicus Open Access Hub [2] and emergent macrophyte cover was classified using the NDVI-based threshold values [1]. Scientists, policymakers, and fish farmers can all benefit from such geospatial datasets. It could be used to monitor the extent of fishponds in Hungary and to design farm-level reed management plans to optimize the provision of ecological and production services.

Artificial aquatic systems, such as aquaculture pondscapes, deliver several important ecosystem services (ES). However, it is challenging to assess their habitat‑maintenance and cultural values because they depend on multiple complex interactions amongst landscape structure, ecological processes, and human use patterns. In this context, we have developed and demonstrated a spatial, proxy-indicator framework that applies landscape‑based metrics (e.g., fractal dimension, shoreline/edge density, connectivity etc.) alongside indicators that capture cultural-recreational aspects (e.g., land‑cover diversity, perceived naturalness, accessibility, protected areas, and tourist attractions etc.). These indicators were calculated at the pond and landscape levels for 25 representative pondscapes in Hungary and were then normalised to enable comparison across different sites. Application of our framework revealed clear differences in landscape patterns and ecosystem services between regions and pond types. Barrage‑dam pondscapes - occurring in Transdanubian regions of Hungary - were found to exhibit higher structural complexity and habitat‑maintenance potential than the predominantly round‑dam ponds of the Great Plain in Hungary. The results also indicate which structural, accessibility and aesthetic factors most strongly influence the potential of ecosystem services across pondscapes. This scalable and reusable approach can be used to conduct ecosystem service assessments in other similar pondscapes, particularly in contexts where intensive field surveys are not feasible. It can further support decision‑making related to targeted restoration, agri‑environment scheme design and broader pondscape enhancement.