Abstract

AbstractThe Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) has been leading an Ocean Special Area Management Plan (SAMP) aimed at zoning the state’s coastal waters to accommodate offshore wind farm developments. In previous SAMP related work, the authors had considered the wind farm siting issue as an optimization problem between wind resources and technological constraints. In the present analysis, the additional constraints on wind farm siting of ecosystem services “cost”, in particular ecological and social services, are explored in an ecosystem-based management (EBM) conceptual framework. An ecological typology of the coastal area is developed on the basis of ecological variables, using spatial multivariate principal component and cluster analyses. Then, the sensitivity of the resulting ecological subregions to wind farm impact is assessed through the construction of ecological services impact indexes. A fishery service index is used to assess the fisheries services constraints. Ecosystem se...

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