Fisheries, Climate Change, and Offshore Wind Energy Development on US Continental Shelf Regions

Wind energy is becoming an essential part of the energy system in the Baltic Sea region (BSR). There has been a tremendous development of offshore wind energy in the early 21st century in this region, and the plan for further growth in the coming years is ambitious. The development and implementation of offshore wind energy is a complex process involving many physical and sociopolitical aspects. These aspects have their own characteristics in the BSR. Therefore, they have their unique impact and constraints on the regional development and implementation of the strategic energy technology (SET) plans. This includes implementing next-generation wind turbine technology, offshore wind farms and system integration, floating offshore wind and wind energy industrialization, wind energy operation, maintenance and installation, ecosystems, social impact and human capital agendas, and basic wind energy sciences. Climate change is an important issue to address in relation to future development. Among the questions that may arise are: How would climate change affect the wind resource, extreme wind, and several meteorological and oceanic variables relevant to the offshore wind energy sector? What does this effect imply for the development of offshore wind energy in the BSR? It is encouraging to acknowledge that there have been numerous relevant, good quality, pertinent studies on the subject of the BSR, and many more are ongoing. It is also inspiring to see that in the wind energy sector, there are already many technologies, methods, and tools that are sufficiently mature, and many of them, together with lessons learned through studies in other offshore regions, can be applied to support the urgent and extensive scale development of offshore wind in the BSR.

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.

AimTo address the uncertainty associated with climate‐driven biogeographical changes in commercial fisheries species through an ensemble species distribution modelling (SDM) approach.LocationNortheast US Continental Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem (NEUS‐LME).MethodsWe combined an ensemble SDM platform (BIOMOD 2) and a high‐resolution global climate model (NOAA GFDL CM2.6) to quantify spatiotemporal changes in habitat of two commercially important species in the Northeast US Continental Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem (NEUS‐LME); American lobster (Homarus americanus); and sea scallop (Placopecten magellanicus). An ensemble SDM was calibrated using multi‐decadal fisheries‐independent surveys (1984–2016). Statistically weighted species‐specific ensemble SDM outputs were combined with 80 years of projected bottom temperature and salinity changes in response to a high greenhouse gas emissions scenario (an annual 1% increase in atmospheric CO2).ResultsStatistically significant changes (p < .05) in habitat suitability for both species were found over a large portion of the study area. Sea scallop undergoes a northward shift over the study period, while American lobster moves further offshore. The ensemble projections showed that several management zones were identified with increases and decreases in species‐specific habitat. Uncertainty due to variations in ensemble member models was also found in the direction of change within each management zone.Main conclusionsThis study provides ensemble estimates of climate‐driven changes and associated uncertainties in the biogeography of two economically important species in the United States. Projected climate change in the NEUS‐LME will pose management challenges, and our ensemble projections provide useful information for climate‐ready management of commercial fisheries.

AimGeographic range shifts are a common species' response to climate change. While occurrence data are commonly used to estimate species' geographical range shifts, ongoing debate suggests that local abundance data may be increasingly important for the estimates, but few studies have investigated differences between the above two types of data. We aimed to explore whether occurrence and abundance data would result in different patterns of geographic range shifts for marine fishes.LocationNortheast US Continental Shelf, North Sea, and East Bering Sea.MethodsWe used bottom trawl datasets since 1968 in the three large marine communities to assess whether data types would affect estimated shifts in marine fish species. The range centroids of individual species were first estimated every year and linear regressions were fitted to estimate shift rates in both longitudinal and latitudinal directions. The average range centroids of the last 5 years were used to compare differences between the data types in species' shifts. We then grouped species by traits to overview species compositions.ResultsSignificant differences in shift trends between regressions based on annual occurrence‐ and abundance‐based range centroids were found in species' longitudinal shifts, particularly in the Northeast US Continental Shelf and North Sea. Approximately 38.5%–45.9% of fish species in the large marine communities had inconsistent shift directions when estimated by different data types. In comparison with the average range centroids of the last 5 years between the two data types, large changes were identified in the magnitudes of the shift distances towards the east and west. Fish species with inconsistent shifts between the two data types were mostly composed of commercial and demersal species.Main ConclusionsThe results provide observed differences over decades and suggest caution on the estimation of species' geographic range shifts using occurrence and abundance data and highlight the differences for future assessments of marine species shifts under climate change.

Offshore wind energy development in the exclusive economic zone: Legal and policy supports and impediments in Germany and the US

Impacts of the North Atlantic Oscillation on sea surface temperature on the Northeast US Continental Shelf

Changing source waters on the Northeast US Continental Shelf: Variation in nutrient supply and phytoplankton biomass

Lagrangian circulation on the Southeast US Continental Shelf: Implications for larval dispersal and retention

The spatial distribution of the Atlantic cod ( Gadus morhua) stock is shaped in part by several habitat and oceanographic variables. In this study, vector autoregressive spatiotemporal models were used to combine data from multiple survey programs to hindcast seasonal spatial densities of three size classes of cod within the Northeast US Continental Shelf from 1982 to 2021. Bottom habitat characteristics, bottom water temperature, depth, and basin-averaged climate indices were included as density covariates. Depth, bottom temperature, and gravel sediments were strongly associated with spatial density. The relative abundance of all size classes generally decreased throughout the time series. Model outputs highlighted patches with persistently high spatial density despite range losses and declining abundance. This aligns with the “basin model”, a spatial dynamic frequently reported in collapsed fish stocks. The availability of habitat with suitable depth and temperature will likely be reduced under current projections of bottom water temperature, further endangering the recovery of the stock. Improving our understanding of cod habitat preferences and variation in spatial density will be important for future management efforts.

Climate change modifies the abundance and distribution of marine species, which can reshape patterns of species richness. The Northeast US Continental Shelf (NES) is a mid-latitude marine ecosystem experiencing changes in its physical environment and biota; these changes involve both lower and upper trophic level organisms. In this study, change in species richness of fish and macroinvertebrates was examined based on trawl survey data. Using a constrained subset of the survey strata comprising the overall design, we observed some 451 species over the period 1968–2022. Species richness was consistently higher in the autumn survey versus the spring survey. This seasonal difference in richness was mainly due to a contrast in vertebrate taxa as invertebrate species richness was similar between the seasons. Significant trends were found in the species richness when considering all taxa in both spring and autumn surveys. The rate of change in species richness reflected an increase of 10.8 species per decade in spring and an increase of 16.5 species per decade in autumn. The enhanced rate of increase in autumn was reflected in taxonomic and functional groups that we examined, and likely resulted from longer summering phases by migratory vertebrate species and range shifts northward by multiple taxa in response to greater summer temperatures and longer summer duration. Species richness in the NES was positively correlated with temperature over the study period; however, richness was also positively correlated with ecosystem biomass, suggesting the response in species richness is not limited to the redistribution of species alone. We expect richness to continue to increase, especially in autumn, but range contractions and further community restructuring could lead to declines in richness in the northern end of the NES.

The data represent two outputs from the Northeast Fisheries Climate Vulnerability assessment. The first are the biological sensitivity and climate exposure scores for each of the 82 species. The second are the estimated effect of climate change on each of the 82 species. Climate change and decadal variability are impacting marine fish and invertebrate species worldwide and these impacts will continue for the foreseeable future. Quantitative approaches have been developed to examine climate impacts on productivity, abundance, and distribution of various marine fish and invertebrate species. However, it is difficult to apply these approaches to large numbers of species owing to the lack of mechanistic understanding sufficient for quantitative analyses, as well as the lack of scientific infrastructure to support these more detailed studies. Vulnerability assessments provide a framework for evaluating climate impacts over a broad range of species with existing information. These methods combine the exposure of a species to a stressor (climate change and decadal variability) and the sensitivity of species to the stressor. These two components are then combined to estimate an overall vulnerability. Quantitative data are used when available, but qualitative information and expert opinion are used when quantitative data is lacking.

There are substantial knowledge gaps regarding both the bioacoustics and the responses of animals to sounds associated with pre-construction, construction, and operations of offshore wind (OSW) energy development. A workgroup of the 2020 State of the Science Workshop on Wildlife and Offshore Wind Energy identified studies for the next five years to help stakeholders better understand potential cumulative biological impacts of sound and vibration to fishes and aquatic invertebrates as the OSW industry develops. The workgroup identified seven short-term priorities that include a mix of primary research and coordination efforts. Key research needs include the examination of animal displacement and other behavioral responses to sound, as well as hearing sensitivity studies related to particle motion, substrate vibration, and sound pressure. Other needs include: identification of priority taxa on which to focus research; standardization of methods; development of a long-term highly instrumented field site; and examination of sound mitigation options for fishes and aquatic invertebrates. Effective assessment of potential cumulative impacts of sound and vibration on fishes and aquatic invertebrates is currently precluded by these and other knowledge gaps. However, filling critical gaps in knowledge will improve our understanding of possible sound-related impacts of OSW energy development to populations and ecosystems.

There are substantial knowledge gaps regarding both the bioacoustics and the responses of animals to sounds associated with pre-construction, construction, and operations of offshore wind (OSW) energy development. A workgroup of the 2020 State of the Science Workshop on Wildlife and Offshore Wind Energy recommended priority studies for the next five years to help stakeholders better understand potential cumulative biological impacts of sound and vibration to fishes and aquatic invertebrates as the OSW industry develops. The workgroup identified seven short-term priorities that include a mix of primary research and coordination efforts. Key research needs include the examination of animal displacement and other behavioral responses to sound, as well as hearing sensitivity studies related to particle motion, substrate vibration, and sound pressure. Other needs include: identification of priority taxa on which to focus research; standardization of methods; development of a long-term highly instrumented field site; and examination of sound mitigation options for fishes and aquatic invertebrates. Effective assessment of potential cumulative impacts of sound and vibration on fishes and aquatic invertebrates is currently precluded by these and other knowledge gaps. Filling critical gaps in knowledge will improve our understanding of possible sound-related impacts of OSW energy development to populations and ecosystems.

Environmental and climatic changes are expected to redistribute species, altering the strengths of species interaction networks; however, long-term and large-scale evaluations remain elusive. One way to infer species interaction networks is by analyzing their geographical overlaps, which provides indices of species interdependence, such as mean spatial robustness (MSR), which represents the geographical impact of a species on other species, and mean spatial sensitivity (MSS), which indicates how a species is influenced by other species. Integrating MSR and MSS further allows us to assess community coexistence stability and structure, with a stronger negative relationship between MSR and MSS (i.e., species are unequally dependent on each other) within a community at a given time suggesting a more stable community. Here, we assessed multidecadal changes in adult marine fish communities using bottom trawl datasets across latitudes from 1982 to 2011 in the Eastern US Continental Shelf, North Sea, and Eastern Bering Sea. Consistent, significant long-term increasing temporal trends of MSR and MSS were found in all three large marine communities. MSR exhibited strong correlations with species’ range sizes, especially in high-latitude communities, while MSS was strongly positively correlated with species’ median proportion of overlap with interacting species. The relationships between MSR and MSS were generally negative, indicating stably coexisting fish communities. However, the negative relationships weakened over time, implying that the coexisting fish communities gradually became unstable. Our findings provide an assessment of changes in spatially geographical aspects of multiple species, for decades and at mid- to high latitudes, to allow the detection of global ecological changes in marine systems by alternative estimation of geographic overlaps of species interaction networks. Such species co-occurrence estimation can help stay vigilant of strategies for accelerating climate change mitigation particularly at coarser spatial scales.

The Competitive Advantage of Developing Offshore Wind Energy in China