Monitoring marine megafauna at wind farm scale
The growing number of offshore wind farms raises questions about impacts on marine megafauna, including marine mammals, fish, birds, and even bats that may venture offshore. To better understand this marine biodiversity and its behaviour near wind farms, we design tools and methods proven in offshore environments to ensure continuous and long-term megafauna monitoring. For example, from a marine structure within an operating offshore wind farm (DRACCAR- project). We have also worked on optimising aerial surveys of megafauna above wind farms. For safety reasons, these surveys can only be conducted above 300 m using automated imaging systems that generate thousands of images per flight. To improve cost-effectiveness, we developed automated detection tools with our partners to identify megafauna in these aerial photographs (SEMMACAPE project). Our work also highlights the value of prioritising digital monitoring from the environmental baseline through to the operational life of wind farms to ensure comparable datasets (OWFSOMM project).
