Key findings:
- The exploitation of offshore renewable (OR) resources varies greatly in size and capacity across the different European sea basins, whereby the spatial expansion until 2025 suggests a sharp increase of spatial conflict potential in the North Sea, Baltic Sea, and Mediterranean over the next five years.
- The current and future cumulative OR development affects mostly trawling fleets targeting mixed demersal species and crustaceans, whereas the composition of fishing effort varied greatly across fleets at individual planning sites.
- European-wide standardised monitoring programmes would provide currently unavailable ecological and socio-economic data (i.e. indirect costs of lost fishing opportunities), which are needed to assess the general cumulative ecological and socio-economic effects of OR expansions.
- An integrative framework is proposed to clarify and mitigate the effects of OR on fisheries (e.g. by creating transparent guidelines on the expansion of OR, early stakeholder consultation, the involvement of independent third parties or compensation payments), and to facilitate best practice guidance for marine spatial planning and the co-operation among marine users.
Exacutive summary
Background
This study aims to provide an overview of the general impacts of the development of offshore renewables (OR) on fisheries in European sea basins. Furthermore, it highlights pathways for possible co-existence solutions for both sectors, a description of good practice examples and lessons learnt, research gaps, and policy recommendations.
The research focusses on an in-depth spatial overlap analysis between the present-day fishing effort by fleet and the current and future spatial expansion of OR in European seas based on Automatic Identification System (AIS) and Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) data. Further, we defined the concepts of co-existence, co-location and co-operation, and subsequently synthesised the lessons learnt from representative cases from the UK, Denmark, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands. A standardised literature review allowed us to summarise the current knowledge on the impacts of OR on fisheries and to identify respective knowledge gaps.
This study has been prepared during the period June to August 2020 by the Thünen Institute of Sea Fisheries, Germany, based on desk research consisting of a compilation and analysis of existing data, and a literature review.
Impact of offshore renewables on European fisheries
The proliferation of OR, such as offshore wind farms (OWF), is a key pillar in the global transition to a carbon-free power sector. The expansion of OR varies greatly across the European seas, whereby Northern European countries such as the UK, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden currently have the highest numbers of installed OWF. This spatial expansion is accompanied by an increasing conflict potential with other marine sectors, such as fisheries. In Europe, marine spatial planning (MSP) allocates multiple human activities at sea, such as OR development or shipping, but often falls short in contributing to the adaptive capacity of fisheries.
A spatio-temporal overlap analysis of OR development and fishing activities of European fleets suggests a sharp increase of spatial conflict potential in the North Sea, Baltic Sea, and Mediterranean on a mid-term perspective (until 2025). For instance, in the North Sea, the spatial overlap in terms of absolute hours fished could more than double by 2025. In contrast, the conflict potential due to OR expansions in the Atlantic and Celtic Sea regions will remain low at mid-term, but is expected to increase substantially at the long-term (after 2025). In the Baltic, Celtic, and North Sea, OR expansion will affect mostly fishing fleets that deploy trawl gears and target crustaceans (Figures 1). Furthermore, the results show a great variation of fishing effort per fleet and OR across years, hence highlighting the need for local and regional assessments based on standardised data.
Restricting fishing activities in a larger area will likely lead to the reallocation of fishing activities including associated industries and logistics. Economic impact assessments for the effects of OR on fisheries need to address direct and indirect costs of the loss of fishing opportunities such as the effects on the local communities and onshore economic activities, but these are hampered by the lack of available and harmonised socio-economic data. While spatial data on fishing activities become increasingly available, a European-wide standardised research and monitoring strategy with respect to OR expansion and its socio-ecological effects is missing.
Good practice in co-existence solutions
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The concept of co-existence refers to two or more activities (e.g. fishing activities and OR) existing at the same time and/or in the same place, while co-location describes the fact that at least two activities are actively managed together while sharing space at sea. Co-operation reflects an interaction between two or more activities, each benefitting from that relationship, and leading to a growth for both. The implementation of co-location or co-existence solutions depends on site-specific characteristics and prevailing integrated management approaches, such as MSP. From existing case studies in the UK, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany a few measures emerged that may support the mitigation of spatial use conflicts. Those comprise 1) early stakeholder consultation to detect conflict potential at an early stage and acknowledge the importance of all actors; 2) facilitation of negotiation processes by independent third parties and the creation of guidelines for the expansion of OR; 3) compensation payments for the disturbance and the associated loss of income or additional expenditures: all three aiming at contributing to a reduction of the impact. The co-location of OR with other uses can reduce the impact potential on other marine uses, strengthen the relationship of the sectors of concern, and even enable beneficial co-operation between them.
Key knowledge gaps to inform integrated management
Existing knowledge on the impact of OR on fisheries is focused mainly on ecological and environmental impacts. The environmental effects of future expansions of OR still is in its infancy. We identified a clear gap of economic and socio-cultural impact assessments for the impact of OR expansion on fisheries. Overall, more research is needed to assess potential impacts of the development of OR, especially OWF, on the fishing sector, local communities and onshore economic activities.
Recommendations
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Based on our analyses we recommend:
- To promote standardised monitoring programmes and the harmonisation of fishing data, needed to perform cumulative ecological and socio-economic environmental impact assessment of the expansion of marine energy;
- To enable more research to understand the effects of offshore renewable (OR) installations on the fishing sector, local communities and onshore economic activities to provide guidance for marine spatial planning (MSP) to plan with fisheries and support their adaptive capacities;
- To develop best practice guidance for MSP on the implementation of mitigation measures to lower the conflict potential between fisheries and OR development and to promote co-operation between marine uses.
Link to the full study: https://bit.ly/652-212
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2 Comments
Isabel Vázquez Conde · October 22, 2020 at 12:05 pm
Dear Sir/Madam,
I would like to kindly ask you wether I can expect or not the translation of this very interesting study into Spanish.
As it was already published, perhaps translation is expected a bit later, could you please me confirm this?
Thank you very much.
Best regards,
kingaostanska · October 23, 2020 at 11:16 am
Thanks for your interest in our study, which will be presented with a Q&A session by two of the authors in the PECH Committee next Tuesday, 27/10, from 13.45 to 14.45. The meeting will be web-streamed: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/pech/meetings/webstreaming
Please be aware that a Spanish language version of the executive summary will be uploaded here shortly.
Currently, it is not foreseen to translate the entire study into other languages.
Best regards