TROPHIK: better integrate the effects of climate change
Published on 26/03/2021
Within the framework of the TROPHIK project, a new publication lays the foundation of a methodology that better takes into account the effects of climate change in impact studies carried out prior to the construction of offshore wind farms.
Published in Fisheries Oceanography, the article describes a methodology for better integrating the impact of climate change on an ecosystem, in this case the Bay of Seine where the future offshore wind farm of Courseulles-sur-mer will be located. This marine area being already subject to numerous anthropogenic pressures, the effects of the installation of the wind farm should be evaluated by considering the accumulation of impacts to better predict the overall consequences on the ecosystem.
In many cases, the impacts of climate change are predicted on the basis of niche models that assess how the spatial distribution of species shifts while neglecting trophic interactions. On the other hand, trophic models rarely take into account the spatial dispersion of individuals. This paper offers an innovative methodology to integrate both aspects (spatial dispersion and trophic relationships) and thus better understand the effect of climate change on an ecosystem already strongly constrained by human activities.
The TROPHIK project aims to develop, through modeling, an integrated view of the ecosystem to complement the results of environmental impact studies that generally focus on a single compartment of the ecosystem.