Marine resources and offshore wind farms

Around the globe, the generation of electricity from offshore wind farms is increasing. Still recent predictions by the International Energy Agency (IEA) highlight the urgent need to quadruple the annual offshore wind capacity additions to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While technology and national policies aim to keep pace with spatial planning processes to secure the expansion of the sector, scientific knowledge on potential ecological benefits of offshore wind farms is growing at a much slower rate.

This session will focus on empirical evidence of benefits of offshore wind farms for marine resources. Here we invite contributions on the monitoring and assessment of fisheries resources in and around offshore wind farms. The ultimate goal of the session is to elaborate some guiding principles for the future installation of offshore wind farms to enhance potential benefits and to derive some recommendations for the monitoring and assessment of marine resources in and around offshore wind farms.

The exploitation of marine resources from offshore wind farms by fisheries and aquaculture is currently a matter of lively debate. The intensification of human uses in offshore waters has created complex conflicts between different sectors competing for space and the need for the conservation of marine resources.

Despite the lack of profound local knowledge on actual ecological changes, there is a general expectation of benefits for some marine resources due to the installation of hard substrate. Fisheries resources such as gadoid species, mackerel or brown crab are expected to increase in biomass and abundance in and around offshore wind farms. The potential spill-over of biomass from wind farms steers the debate around the maximum proximity for fisheries activities and the requirements for a safe and economically viable operation of wind farms.

The knowledge base concerning the co-location of aquaculture in offshore wind farms is increasing as well. Recent projects have investigated various topics from stakeholder perceptions to economic feasibility.

This session embraces the socio-ecological complexity of the exploitation of marine resources and the production of food from offshore wind farms. Therefore, we invite case studies, practical experience and approaches on how to decide on such trade-offs. The goal of the session is to summarise the lessons learned on how to balance Blue Growth, sectoral requirements and marine conservation.

When wind farms are installed, coarse material has to be introduced to the seabed for their foundation, thus creating a suitable habitat for several fisheries resources. One example from the southern North Sea is the commercially valuable brown crab Cancer pagurus. The abundance of this species increased over the last years, especially in the surroundings of offshore installations. Thus, fishing opportunities on this target species in the surroundings of these installations are promising.

However, crab are so far rather a regional specialty with limited capacity of sales volume. As for the German market, usually only the clippers are consumed. Similar situations exist with potential products of offshore aquaculture like mussels or seaweed. Especially seaweed has great potential for ecological remediation and economic potential if it can be marketed to local consumers.

Associating these products with the positive image of wind farms as sustainable energy plants and marketing natural resources from wind farms as sustainable products appears promising. Both, using existing labels or developing a new label, seems feasible. Moreover, in the case of limited market capacity of the fresh market, any excess production could be considered for marketing as processed product.

In this session the experiences gained with regional marketing in general as well as eco-labelling of seafood are discussed. In addition, flows of trade of edible crab in the North Sea area are further evaluated.