Abstract
Aquatera, Parametrix, European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) and Powertech Labs have been contracted by the Oregon Wave Energy Trust (OWET) to develop and deliver a framework suitable for identifying and assessing potential cumulative impacts from the development of a wave energy industry in Oregon and for use in evaluating the policy implications of wave energy development relative to natural resource planning.
The framework will essentially provide a means for geographically managing interactions, conflicts and opportunities based on geographic distribution data. The resulting framework will have a wide range of possible applications after further development including:
- Regulators identifying, assessing and managing impacts and opportunities
- Developers identifying areas particularly suitable for development
- Stakeholders identifying potential areas of overlap and opportunity
- Strategic planners identifying potential development areas and potential areas of conflict
- Conflict management, consultation, marine management and public awareness
One task associated with the development of this framework is to conduct a global literature review of relevant data and information to help build the cumulative effects framework. Some relatively recent work relevant to this task includes an exhaustive literature review on wave and tidal energy applications in the Pacific Northwest completed by Powertech (Powertech Labs Inc., 2008) and a synthesis of information regarding the environmental effects of alternative energy uses commissioned by the Minerals Management Service (Michel, 2007).
This document adds to those existing reviews through providing a summary of similar work which is underway or has been completed around the world, as well as work that is currently underway that has the potential to inform future iterations of the framework that will be developed during this stage of the project, Phase I.