TY - CHAP
T1 - Offshore environmental aspects
AU - Lindeboom, H.J.
AU - Degraer, S.
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - The number of offshore wind farms (OWFs) is increasing rapidly, leading to questions about the cumulative environmental impact of such farms. The major impacts are caused by the noise produced in the building phase, the new hard substratum, the moving rotor blades, possible underwater noise in the production phase and the exclusion of fisheries. Danish, Dutch, British, German and Belgium monitoring programmes in individual wind farms have shown, in general, an increase in biodiversity due to the hard substratum, as well as changes in benthic and fish fauna due to the presence of the foundations and further away due to exclusion of fisheries and attraction or avoidance by some bird species or sea mammals. These effects can be qualified as partly negative, partly positive and partly unknown or so far unclear. In particular, the cumulative effects of the increasing number of wind farms need further attention. Negative effects of wind farms include effects of noise on sea mammals and possibly fish, avoidance behaviour by some bird species, and bird and bat collisions with turning rotor blades. If OWFs want to be real suppliers of green energy, ways to mitigate the negative effects need further research and development of innovative techniques.
AB - The number of offshore wind farms (OWFs) is increasing rapidly, leading to questions about the cumulative environmental impact of such farms. The major impacts are caused by the noise produced in the building phase, the new hard substratum, the moving rotor blades, possible underwater noise in the production phase and the exclusion of fisheries. Danish, Dutch, British, German and Belgium monitoring programmes in individual wind farms have shown, in general, an increase in biodiversity due to the hard substratum, as well as changes in benthic and fish fauna due to the presence of the foundations and further away due to exclusion of fisheries and attraction or avoidance by some bird species or sea mammals. These effects can be qualified as partly negative, partly positive and partly unknown or so far unclear. In particular, the cumulative effects of the increasing number of wind farms need further attention. Negative effects of wind farms include effects of noise on sea mammals and possibly fish, avoidance behaviour by some bird species, and bird and bat collisions with turning rotor blades. If OWFs want to be real suppliers of green energy, ways to mitigate the negative effects need further research and development of innovative techniques.
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-319-46919-5_9
DO - 10.1007/978-3-319-46919-5_9
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:85019698667
SN - 9783319469188
T3 - Research Topics in Wind Energy
SP - 77
EP - 81
BT - Long-term research challenges in wind energy
A2 - van Kuik, Gijs
A2 - Peinke, Joachim
PB - Springer International Publishing Switzerland
ER -