Oceanographic and geological research at alpha ventus: Instruments for predicting environmental conditions and interactions

Abstract

The RAVE Service Project was coordinated by the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) and divided into several work packages covering a wide range of technical and scientific measurements. BSH collected geological and oceanographic data to obtain reliable information about interactions between offshore facilities and the marine environment. The FINO1 research platform in the direct vicinity of alpha ventus was also part of BSH’s oceanographic research programme. The focus of the geological investigations was on interactions between the piled foundations, the seabed and the oceanographic parameters (e.g. wave, tide and current), and sediment shifting in the windfarm. In the absence of in-situ measurements, a combination of fixed single-beam echosounders and full-coverage multibeam echosounding was applied to acquire a spatio-temporal dataset of scour dynamics at alpha ventus.