Abstract
Scottish Government has set a target to generate 50% of overall energy consumption from renewable sources by 2030 and to have decarbonised the energy system almost completely by 2050. OffshoreRenewable Developments (ORDs) can make a significant contribution to these targets. However, theScottish Government must ensure that ORDs are delivered in a sustainable manner in accordance with the requirements of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (EC/2008/56), the HabitatsDirective (EC/92/43) and the Birds Directive (EC/79/409).
One key challenge is that ORDs have the potential to affect seabirds that are protected by the EU BirdsDirective, notably from collisions with turbine blades and through displacement from important habitat. The consenting process for developments which may interact with seabirds, may therefore involve assessing whether the development is likely to have an adverse effect on the integrity of SPAs.
In order to assess potential impacts on SPAs designated for breeding seabirds, it is necessary to determine whether seabirds potentially impacted by proposed offshore marine renewables originate from SPAs. The predicted effects are generally quantified in terms of the number of individuals at the development site likely to be affected. Effects are then attributed to appropriate SPAs in order to determine population-level impacts.
For at-sea distributions collected from ships or planes, the connectivity of observed birds to colonies is unknown. A range of traditional and new data have the potential to provide useful information on colony provenance of birds observed at sea and could therefore be employed to improve accuracy of apportioning tools during the breeding and non-breeding season. Existing apportioning methods include the NatureScot apportioning approach for breeding birds, Biologically Defined Minimum Population Scales and the Marine Scotland Apportioning Tool.
This project (AppSaS) aims to review these and other methods to improve the accuracy of breeding and non-breeding season apportioning of birds.
Accordingly, the aims and objectives of the AppSaS project are to reduce uncertainty in how the offshore wind sector apportions seabirds recorded during at-sea surveys to particular populations.
This will enable more robust pre-consent impact assessments by:
- Considering how to establish connectivity between birds present in offshore areas at different times of the year, including the relative contribution of different populations to seabirds present offshore;
- Reviewing current approaches to apportioning by using empirical data and other evidence sources to validate their underlying assumptions;
- Identifying improvements to existing approaches or, if required, identifying and developing new approaches.