Context

Marine ecosystems provide ecosystem services to human populations but under increasing anthropogenic pressure their production is disrupted. Ecosystem conservation is ensured by marine protected areas but their spatial coverage is currently insufficient in regards to the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

In addition, the development of offshore wind farms is required and is leading to the idea of a “win-win” strategy by reconciling clean energy production and preservation of biodiversity and the resulting ecosystem services. But for that, it is essential to understand and predict impacts, both positive or negative, of offshore wind farms on the ecosystems structure and functioning and to assess current ecosystem services and project their provision afterwards.

Objectives

• To develop a multi-model approach to predict offshore wind farm impacts on ecosystems and the resulting services.
• To guide a win-win strategy between offshore wind farm developments and conservation strategies.

Scientific and technical content

• Development of an End-to-End model consisting on a trophic and spatial model forced by ecological niches models outputs and a biogeochemical model on the areas of future wind farms implementation in the Eastern English Channel and the Gulf of Lion and their related ecosystem indicators.
• Development of novel ecosystem services indicators specific to the offshore wind farms and rooted in ecological knowledge and models.

Resources

Project sheet (PDF)

Partners and funding

The projet is lead by Université du Littoral Côte d’Opale and France Energies Marines.

The total budget project is €1,076K.

This project receives funding from France Energies Marines and its members and partners, as well as French State funding managed by the National Research Agency under the Investments for the Future Programme (ANR-10-IEED-06-34).

Photo credit: Shilly / Pixabay