Abstract
The Dutch government has decided to allow the construction of the Offshore Wind Farm Egmond aan Zee (OWEZ) demonstration project by NoordZee Wind, a consortium of Shell and NUON. The wind farm was completed August 2006. As the environmental impact of offshore wind turbines is not well known, NoordZee Wind is funding an extensive monitoring programme to evaluate the possible impact of the wind farm. Within this programme, IMARES is (among others) undertaking projects designed to study the effects of windfarm operation on fish, and noise.
This progress report summarizes the research undertaken during 2007 for demersal fish. In particular, it contains a preliminary study focussing on the differences between the data collected for demersal fish during the periods T0 and T1.