The Ecological Consequences of Offshore Wind research programme (ECOWind) has confirmed funding for three projects to investigate the cumulative impacts of offshore wind on the marine environment.
The findings will inform UK marine policy and management.
To meet its goal of 50GW of offshore wind power by 2050, the UK’s marine landscape will need to change considerably, which could impact the marine environment, alongside other marine users, including the fishing industry.
The ECOWind programme aims to address gaps in knowledge and provide policy-ready research outcomes that ensure offshore wind can be expanded in line with biodiversity priorities.
Overall funding for the programme totals around £7.5m, provided by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Crown Estate, with support from Defra.
Mandy King, Programme Manager of the Crown Estate’s Offshore Wind Energy and Change Programme, who are co-funding ECOWind, said: “We want to help develop an industry that supports the UK’s net zero ambitions and ensures we are positively impacting communities around our coastline and further offshore, including humans and marine life.”
The ECOWind-ACCELERATE project, led by Bangor University, will investigate how offshore wind affects the seabed through altering water flow conditions, and what this means for the wider marine ecosystem.
When a wind turbine is installed, it changes the way ocean currents flow, which also changes the seabed, resulting in knock-on impacts up the food chain. Using the Eastern Irish Sea as a case study, and in the context of accelerating climate change, the project will help build more accurate environmental prediction systems, including anticipated behaviour changes in animals resulting from impacts to the seabed.
The ECOWINGS project, led by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, will focus on the cumulative impacts of offshore wind on key seabird species in the UK North Sea, such as kittiwakes, guillemots, razorbills, and puffins.
It will investigate exactly what causes seabirds to change their behaviour when offshore wind farms are built, for instance, if they avoid wind farms due to aversion to the turbines themselves, because their prey species have moved elsewhere, or both.
The project will use these findings to build a set of tools to inform strategic compensation, a type of policy measure that aims to offset any negative impacts on wildlife through supporting their populations via other means, such as habitat protection or creation.
The PELAgIO project will look at the effects of offshore wind on a wide range of interacting marine factors.
The project will begin by examining effects on ocean currents, seeing how they affect nutrients and plankton populations, before scaling up to investigate effects on plankton-eating fish such as sandeels and herring, followed by the animals that eat these fish, such as seabirds and seals.
Its findings will help build tools to assess policy trade-offs at the ecosystem level and create a better understanding of the many interactions taking place in the ocean, and how they change when offshore wind and climate change are introduced.