Habitat use and selection of black scoters in southern New England and siting of offshore wind energy facilities

2014 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 645-656 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela H. Loring ◽  
Peter W.C. Paton ◽  
Jason E. Osenkowski ◽  
Scott G. Gilliland ◽  
Jean-Pierre L. Savard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Habitat Use ◽  
Wind Energy ◽  
New England ◽  
Offshore Wind ◽  
Offshore Wind Energy ◽  
Southern New England ◽  
Selection Of

Resource selection and wintering phenology of White-winged Scoters in southern New England: Implications for offshore wind energy development

The Condor ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 121 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dustin E Meattey ◽  
Scott R McWilliams ◽  
Peter W C Paton ◽  
Christine Lepage ◽  
Scott G Gilliland ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Wind Energy ◽  
Continental Shelf ◽  
New England ◽  
Resource Selection ◽  
Site Fidelity ◽  
Offshore Wind ◽  
Offshore Wind Energy ◽  
Sea Ducks ◽  
Southern New England ◽  
Wintering Habitat

Abstract Southern New England provides key wintering habitat for White-winged Scoters (Melanitta fusca). This area has also pioneered the development of offshore wind energy in North America. The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has established 9 Wind Energy Area (WEA) lease blocks along the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf in areas that may provide important staging and wintering habitat for scoters and other species of sea ducks. Concern over the potential impact of offshore wind energy on sea duck populations has led to efforts to develop models to understand their distribution, habitat use, and site fidelity. We used satellite telemetry to document winter phenology and site fidelity, as well as fine-scale resource selection and habitat use, of 40 White-winged Scoters along the southern New England continental shelf. Scoters spent over half of the annual cycle on the wintering grounds and demonstrated a high degree of interannual site fidelity to composite core-use areas. Sizes of individual 50% core-use home ranges were variable (X¯ = 868 km2; range: 32–4,220 km2) and individual 95% utilization distributions ranged widely (X¯ = 4,388 km2; range: 272–18,235 km2). More than half of all tagged birds occupied 2 or more discrete core-use areas that were up to 400 km apart. Throughout the study area, scoters selected areas with lower salinity, lower sea surface temperature, higher chlorophyll-a concentrations, and higher hard-bottom substrate probability. Resource selection function models classified 18,649 km2 (23%) of the study area as high probability of use, which included or immediately bordered ~420 km2 of proposed WEA lease blocks. Future offshore wind energy developments in the region should avoid key habitats highlighted by this study and carefully consider the environmental characteristics selected by sea ducks when planning and siting future WEAs.

scholarly journals Assessment of the Potential of Offshore Wind Energy in Taiwan using Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tsung-Lin Lee
Keyword(s):  
Wind Energy ◽  
Analytic Hierarchy Process ◽  
Fuzzy Ahp ◽  
Offshore Wind ◽  
Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process ◽  
Offshore Wind Energy ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Analytic Hierarchy ◽  
Hierarchy Process ◽  
Selection Of

In this paper, the application of the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy AHP) combined with a set of criteria analysis for the selection of appropriate sites for the development offshore wind energy in Taiwan is presented. The Fuzzy AHP was first conducted to rank the importance and identify the key factors of offshore wind energy successfully. From the numerical results, eight key factors that must be considered in the site selection of offshore wind energy system in Taiwan were obtained by using Fuzzy AHP model. They are: wind power, earthquakes, land use, shore type, typhoon, distance to shoreline, flight safety and water depth. Based on these factors, a set of criteria for the selection of sites for offshore wind farms was also established using five different sites in Taiwan. From the assessment results, it was found that Changhua coastal region is an appropriate site for offshore wind energy in Taiwan.

scholarly journals Resource Occurrence and Productivity in Existing and Proposed Wind Energy Lease Areas on the Northeast US Shelf

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin D. Friedland ◽  
Elizabeth T. Methratta ◽  
Andrew B. Gill ◽  
Sarah K. Gaichas ◽  
Tobey H. Curtis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Habitat Use ◽  
Wind Energy ◽  
Continental Shelf ◽  
Marine Ecosystem ◽  
Atlantic Menhaden ◽  
Offshore Wind ◽  
Offshore Wind Energy ◽  
Important Species ◽  
Marine Habitats ◽  
Northeast Us

States in the Northeast United States have the ambitious goal of producing more than 22 GW of offshore wind energy in the coming decades. The infrastructure associated with offshore wind energy development is expected to modify marine habitats and potentially alter the ecosystem services. Species distribution models were constructed for a group of fish and macroinvertebrate taxa resident in the Northeast US Continental Shelf marine ecosystem. These models were analyzed to provide baseline context for impact assessment of lease areas in the Middle Atlantic Bight designated for renewable wind energy installations. Using random forest machine learning, models based on occurrence and biomass were constructed for 93 species providing seasonal depictions of their habitat distributions. We developed a scoring index to characterize lease area habitat use for each species. Subsequently, groups of species were identified that reflect varying levels of lease area habitat use ranging across high, moderate, low, and no reliance on the lease area habitats. Among the species with high to moderate reliance were black sea bass (Centropristis striata), summer flounder (Paralichthys dentatus), and Atlantic menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus), which are important fisheries species in the region. Potential for impact was characterized by the number of species with habitat dependencies associated with lease areas and these varied with a number of continuous gradients. Habitats that support high biomass were distributed more to the northeast, while high occupancy habitats appeared to be further from the coast. There was no obvious effect of the size of the lease area on the importance of associated habitats. Model results indicated that physical drivers and lower trophic level indicators might strongly control the habitat distribution of ecologically and commercially important species in the wind lease areas. Therefore, physical and biological oceanography on the continental shelf proximate to wind energy infrastructure development should be monitored for changes in water column structure and the productivity of phytoplankton and zooplankton and the effects of these changes on the trophic system.

Potential Impacts from a Worst Case Discharge from an United States Offshore Wind Farm

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 (1) ◽  
pp. 869-877
Author(s):  
CDR Tim Gunter
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Wind Energy ◽  
New England ◽  
Rhode Island ◽  
Wind Farm ◽  
Wind Farms ◽  
The United States ◽  
Offshore Wind ◽  
Offshore Wind Energy ◽  
Worst Case

ABSTRACT The main purpose of this research is to explore potential environmental impacts of a worst case discharge (WCD) from an offshore commercial wind farm electric service platform (ESP) in the Northeast United States. Wind farms in the continental United States are a growing industry as an energy alternative to traditional oil, coal, and natural gas energy sources. While many offshore wind farms already exist in Europe and around the world, the Cape Wind Project in New England received the first federally approved lease for an offshore wind energy production facility in the United States. While offshore wind energy is a green source of energy, wind driven energy has its own set of environmental risks, including the risks of an oil spill. A systematic review of scholarly journals, federal government websites and other academic resources was conducted to identify previous spills in the Northeast with the closest match in volume and location to the Cape Wind Project. The oil spills from the barge North Cape in 1996 near Point Judith, Rhode Island and from the barge Florida in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, in 1996, had the most similarities to a potential WCD spill from the Cape Wind Project. Both of these spills adversely impacted the environment, and provide useful information that can be used for the planning efforts surrounding a WCD event from the Cape Wind Project.

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