A Marine Spatial Planning Approach to Select Suitable Areas for Installing Wave Energy Converters (WECs), on the Basque Continental Shelf (Bay of Biscay)

A sensory and nutritional validation of open ocean mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis Lmk.) cultured in SE Bay of Biscay (Basque Country) compared to their commercial counterparts from Galician Rías (Spain)

“…The site is located at 2 nautical miles off the coast without any protection from land masses (Ryan 2004). Galparsoro et al (2012) described strong hydrodynamic conditions on Basque Country's coast. A detailed description of current and waves in the experimental site can be found in Azpeitia et al (2016).…”

“…The lack of development of an aquaculture or shellfish sector in the region of the Bay of Biscay is mainly linked to high wave-energetic scenarios (Galparsoro et al 2012) and previous issues related to estuarine water quality (Chust et al 2009). A further restriction is current legislation, which aims to prevent conflict between users of marine habitats.…”

Monitoring and evaluation of spatially managed areas: A generic framework for implementation of ecosystem based marine management and its application

“…It also aims to optimise the coordination of coastal and terrestrial planning actions between governments, so as to guarantee the maximum efficiency for environmental protection and restoration. New activities are foreseen to be developed such as a wave energy converter which may involve conflicting interests [72]. Therefore, there is a need for integrative analysis approaches to select the most suitable locations for those activities.…”

A proposed wave farm on the Galician coast

“…On the one hand, the cost of the technology itself and technical considerations such as the operation and maintenance (O&M) as well as the length of the underwater cable can be decisive in lowering the final cost of energy [10]. On the other hand, minimising the environmental impact is required, given that the operation of wave farm can produce changes in the coastal hydrodynamics, impacts on the biodiversity and possible interferences with shipping routes or other human activities [11]. All these aspects are extremely affected by the surface occupied by the farm, which determines to a great extent the probability of causing a negative impact on the environment, and, therefore, should be appropriately analysed prior to install a wave operation.…”