Abstract
The increasing global demand for seafood, coupled with the urgent need of transition to renewable energy sources, has led to a growing interest in innovative and sustainable uses of marine space trough the development of Marine Spatial Planning protocols. Offshore aquaculture and renewables are two sectors poised for significant growth along the Portuguese coast, a country with outstanding potential for both sectors. Therefore, this paper seeks to assess the technical and environmental feasibility of co-locating these two industries along the continental coastline.
The study focused on identifying suitable sites for the farming of 3 key species – Dicentrarchus labrax (European Seabass), Mytilus galloprovincialis (Mediterranean Mussel) and Laminaria hyperborea (“curvie” Kelp) - by generating multicriteria suitability indexes and evaluating their compatibility with areas allocated for marine renewable energy deployment. Metocean data was obtained from the Copernicus database, with particular emphasis on seawater temperature, salinity and chlorophyll concentrations. The species' tolerance and ideal growth limits for these values were obtained from literature references. Lastly, suitability maps were generated through Python scripts and QGIS.
Results indicated that several areas along the Portuguese coast, mainly so in the Northwest, may offer adequate suitability for the target species, also overlapping with zones identified as appropriated for offshore wind and/or wave energy deployment. In addition, technical and environmental considerations, as well as potential conflicts with other activities and protected areas, were identified. Moreover, the potential influence of climate change was explored. These remarks suggest that co-location should be studied and improved in-depth, not only to bolster co-location synergies and minimize local conflicts and impacts, but also to provide robust information for proper decision-making processes.