Resolving issues with environmental impact assessment of marine renewable energy installations
Abstract
Growing concerns about climate change and energy security have fueled a rapid increase in the development of marine renewable energy installations (MREIs). The potential ecological consequences of increased use of these devices emphasizes the need for high quality environmental impact assessment (EIA). We demonstrate that these processes are hampered severely, primarily because ambiguities in the legislation and lack of clear implementation guidance are such that they do not ensure robust assessment of the significance of impacts and cumulative effects. We highlight why the regulatory framework leads to conceptual ambiguities and propose changes which, for the most part, do not require major adjustments to standard practice. We emphasize the importance of determining the degree of confidence in impacts to permit the likelihood as well as magnitude of impacts to be quantified and propose ways in which assessment of population-level impacts could be incorporated into the EIA process. Overall, however, we argue that, instead of trying to ascertain which particular developments are responsible for tipping an already heavily degraded marine environment into an undesirable state, emphasis should be placed on better strategic assessment.
Citation
Maclean , I M D , Inger , R , Benson , D , Booth , C G , Embling , C B , Grecian , W J , Heymans , J J , Plummer , K E , Shackshaft , M , Sparling , C E , Wilson , B , Wright , L J , Bradbury , G , Christen , N , Godley , B J , Jackson , A C , McCluskie , A , Nicholls-Lee , R & Bearhop , S 2014 , ' Resolving issues with environmental impact assessment of marine renewable energy installations ' , Frontiers in Marine Science , vol. 1 , 75 . https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2014.00075
Publication
Frontiers in Marine Science
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2296-7745Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2014 Maclean, Inger, Benson, Booth, Embling, Grecian, Heymans, Plummer, Shackshaft, Sparling, Wilson, Wright, Bradbury, Christen, Godley, Jackson, McCluskie, Nicholls-Lee and Bearhop. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Collections
Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.