TY - RPRT
TI - A Strategic Environmental Assessment of the Fish & Shellfish Resources with Respect to Proposed Offshore Wind Farms in the Eastern Irish Sea
AU - Lockwood, S
AB - i. In December 2003 the UK Government announced that it was to promote a second round of offshore wind-farm development. After consultation with the wind-energy industry, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) identified three strategic areas in which Round 2 developments would take place: the Thames Estuary, the Greater Wash, and the North West - an area of the eastern Irish Sea extending from North Wales to south-west Scotland east of 4º W. Developments on this scale are subject to the provisions of the EU Directive 2001/42/EC on the assessment of the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment, commonly known as the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Directive. An assessment of the fish and shellfish stocks in the eastern Irish Sea has been undertaken to meet the requirements of this directive.ii. The report is presented in three parts:a review of the fish and shellfish resources in the eastern Irish Sea, describing their distribution and biology;a summary of the current status of fish and shellfish stocks exploited in the eastern Irish Sea);an initial consideration of the potential effects that developing wind farms may have on fish and shellfish during the pre-construction, construction, operation and decommissioning of wind farms in the eastern Irish Sea.iii. The report was prepared as a desk study which drew on information provided by the Department of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) Fisheries Statistical Unit (FSU), research survey data provided by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science (CEFAS), advice from officers of the North Western & North Wales Sea Fisheries Committee (NWNW SFC), published literature, the internet, and the author’s personal knowledge of the fish and shellfish resources of the eastern Irish Sea.iv. Approximately 70 species of marine fish and commercially exploited shellfish are indigenous to the eastern Irish Sea in addition to salmon, sea trout, eels and a variety of fish of nature conservation interests: basking sharks, allis and twaite shad, common and sand goby, sea and river lamprey, and smelt. The five most abundant species taken in a CEFAS beam-trawl survey were dab, solenette, plaice, common dragonet and Dover sole, but the greatest quantities of fish caught by UK-registered fishing vessels in the eastern Irish Sea were king and queen scallops, nephrops, plaice, cod and whiting. There are also major intertidal fisheries for cockles and mussels centred on, but not limited to, Morecambe Bay.v. The intertidal shellfisheries are assessed and managed by the North Western and North Wales Sea Fisheries Committee but the finfish stocks are assessed by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and managed through the European Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). All of the shellfish stocks are currently judged to be in robust condition but most of the commercially important finfish stocks are giving cause for concern and are subject to highly restrictive catch limitations. Salmon, sea trout and eel stocks that run through the eastern Irish Sea to their freshwater spawning or feeding grounds appear to be suffering a prolonged, long-term decline in abundance.vi. The exact status of the fish of nature conservation interest is not known but there are UK Biodiversity Action Plans in place to safeguard basking shark, shads and lampreys in UK waters. There is no such plan for salmon-related smelt or the gobies; although the smelt is not as numerous as was once the case both goby species are ubiquitous to shallow sandy areas of inshore UK waters.vii. The greatest single effect that wind farms are likely to have on fish is the change in habitat. Natural habitat will be lost as turbine foundations are put in place and new habitat created by the surface area of wind-farm structures. Although many of the species upon which fish feed live in or on the seabed, only a trivial proportion (
DA - 2005/03//
PY - 2005
SP - 105
PB - RWE Innogy
LA - English
KW - Wind Energy
KW - Fixed Offshore Wind
KW - Invertebrates
KW - Human Dimensions
KW - Fish
KW - Environmental Impact Assessment
ER -