An ecosystem-based natural capital evaluation framework that combines environmental and socio-economic implications of offshore renewable energy developments

Abstract

There is about to be an abrupt step-change in the use of coastal seas around the globe, specifically by the addition of large-scale offshore renewable energy developments to combat climate change. Developing this sustainable energy supply will require trade-offs between both direct and indirect environmental effects, as well as spatial conflicts with marine uses like shipping, fishing, and recreation. However, the nexus between drivers, such as changes in the bio-physical environment from the introduction of structures and extraction of energy, and the consequent impacts on ecosystem services delivery and natural capital assets is poorly understood and rarely considered through a whole ecosystem perspective. Future marine planning needs to assess these changes as part of national policy level assessments but also to inform practitioners about the benefits and trade-offs between different uses of natural resources when making decisions to balance environmental and energy sustainability and socio-economic impacts. To address this shortfall, we propose an ecosystem-based natural capital evaluation framework that builds on a dynamic Bayesian modelling approach which accounts for the multiplicity of interactions between physical (e.g., bottom temperature), biological (e.g., net primary production) indicators and anthropogenic marine use (i.e., fishing) and their changes across space and over time. The proposed assessment framework measures ecosystem change, changes in ecosystem goods and services and changes in socio-economic value in response to offshore renewable energy deployment scenarios as well as climate change, to provide objective information for decision processes seeking to integrate new uses into our marine ecosystems. Such a framework has the potential of exploring the likely outcomes in the same metrics (both ecological and socio-economic) from alternative management and climate scenarios, such that objective judgements and decisions can be made, as to how to balance the benefits and trade-offs between a range of marine uses to deliver long-term environmental sustainability, economic benefits, and social welfare.

UK perspective research landscape for offshore renewable energy and its role in delivering Net Zero

“…As mentioned in G2, work within core Supergen ORE has seen the application of pragmatic Bayesian ecosystem modelling that has allowed a novel, whole system perspective to translate dynamic evidence-based ecosystem effects into natural, social, and economic metrics. The approach provides a common 'currency' to communicate and generalise modelling outputs that works across different disciplines and user groups (Trifonova et al 2022b). The Bayesian network approach enables a more accurate spatial overlap analysis which includes the outcomes of interactions between a variety of existing marine uses (renewables, fisheries), the results from which will be able to support marine spatial planners to balance the need for profitability with the need to minimise conflicts and tensions amongst existing and any future planned marine uses of natural resources.…”

“…fish biomass), social (e.g. ecosystem services) via natural capital/ ecosystem services estimates and can be fed into gross value added (GVA) models (Trifonova et al 2022b) ensuring that policies can be developed in a coherent manner for the maximal benefit of society as a whole and will ideally enable the integration of fisheries activities in order to better assess issues, such as potential fisheries displacement and encourage involvement of the industry at the beginning of the planning processes. Table A1 in the appendix summarises other ongoing and recent projects related to Theme G3.…”

“…This need could be met through the development of methods to assess and communicate the range of social benefits and well-being from future large-scale ORE developments. The new core Supergen ORE ecosystem-based Bayesian approach (Trifonova et al 2021(Trifonova et al , 2022a(Trifonova et al , 2022b can measure ecosystem change, change in ecosystem goods and services and change in socio-economic value in response to ORE deployment scenarios as well as climate change and fishing and therefore provides objective information for decision processes seeking to integrate new uses into our marine ecosystems. A coming together of currencies is being used to communicate modelling outcomes with different groups for a more coherent and comprehensive understanding of environmental perturbations.…”

Cumulative Effects of Offshore Renewables: From Pragmatic Policies to Holistic Marine Spatial Planning Tools

“…Moreover, such a modelling approach will highlight which MSFD descriptors are more ecologically significant when assessing overall GES and CIA (Elliott et al, 2015b). The larger ecosystem modelling will also contribute to a better understanding of ecosystem services and their socio-economic implications on other activities, such as fisheries likely to be displaced under MREDs and climate change scenarios (Kafas, 2018;Trifonova et al, 2022;Van de Pol et al, 2023). However, our proposed holistic approach integrating the MSFD into the SEA and EIA processes requires using an open-source national scheme for data sharing of ecosystem modelling outputs and needs to link MEDIN and MDE (grey bubbles and yellow arrows in Fig.…”

Spatiotemporal Variation and Driving Factors of Water Supply Services in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area of China Based on Supply-Demand Balance

“…The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) classifies ESs into four broad categories: provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural services [3]. Because ESs can characterize elements and functions of ecosystems, they have become essential indicators for studying ecological and environmental issues [4]. However, ESs are influenced by both natural and socioeconomic factors [5,6].…”