Abstract
Abstract Background Increasing concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHG) and its impact on the climate has resulted in many international governments committing to reduce their GHG emissions. The UK, for example, has committed to reducing its carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. Suggested ways of reaching such a target are to increase dependency on offshore wind, offshore gas and nuclear. It is not clear, however, how the construction, operation and decommissioning of these energy systems will impact marine ecosystem services, i.e. the services obtained by people from the natural environment such as food provisioning, climate regulation and cultural inspiration. Research on ecosystem service impacts associated with offshore energy technologies is still in its infancy. The objective of this review is to bolster the evidence base by firstly, recording and describing the impacts of energy technologies at the marine ecosystems and human level in a consistent and transparent way; secondly, to translate these ecosystem and human impacts into ecosystem service impacts by using a framework to ensure consistency and comparability. The output of this process will be an objective synthesis of ecosystem service impacts comprehensive enough to cover different types of energy under the same analysis and to assist in informing how the provision of ecosystem services will change under different energy provisioning scenarios. Methods Relevant studies will be sourced using publication databases and selected using a set of selection criteria including the identification of: (i) relevant subject populations such as marine and coastal species, marine habitat types and the general public; (ii) relevant exposure types including offshore wind farms, offshore oil and gas platforms and offshore structures connected with nuclear; (iii) relevant outcomes including changes in species structure and diversity; changes in benthic, demersal and pelagic habitats; and changes in cultural services. The impacts will be synthesised and described using a systematic map. To translate these findings into ecosystem service impacts, the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES) and Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) frameworks are used and a detailed description of the steps taken provided to ensure transparency and replicability.
Highlights
Increasing concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHG) and its impact on the climate has resulted in many international governments committing to reduce their GHG emissions
Increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGa) in the atmosphere and its impact on the climate has been a concern of governments around the world over the last few decades culminating in the signing of a UN treaty on climate change [1] and subsequent ratification of the Kyoto Protocol [2] in 1997 by a number of countries
The UK Renewable Energy Road Map [4], for instance, notes that by 2020, 15% of all UK energy consumption is to be supplied through renewable energy with a significant proportion of electricity production coming from offshore wind energy (25% of total projected renewable demand)
Summary
Search strategy The databases Sciencedirect and Web of Science will be used to source published peer reviewed research while the Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts (ASFA) database is used to access grey literature. Relevant comparators Observational and experimental studies comparing marine biodiversity, habitat, structure, functioning and human impact of the installed energy provisioning structure in the following cases will be considered: Relevant types of study design Empirical studies conducted in the field or in the laboratory will be accepted for this review This includes both experimental and observational studies. The details of the studies will be recorded in a table under the following headings: article reference, subject population, intervention/exposure, setting/context, outcome measures, methodologies design, quality assessments, results of ecosystem/human impact. The reduction in macroalgae growth would be translated into reduced carbon fixation and reduced CO2 sequestration from the water column, which is considered as a regulating service within the CICES framework [15] This ES group heading result is recorded within the synthesis table along with the fact that the CICES classification was used.
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