Spatio-Temporal Assessment of Climate Change Impact on Wave Energy Resources Using Various Time Dependent Criteria

Abstract

The wave energy resources in the Indian Ocean can be considered as a potential alternative to fossil fuels. However, the wave energy resources are subject to short-term fluctuations and long-term changes due to climate change. Hence, considering sustainable development goals, it is necessary to assess both short-term (intra-annual) variation and long-term change. For this purpose, the simulated wave characteristics were utilized, and the wave power and its variation and change were analyzed in the whole domain and nearshore areas. The short-term fluctuation was investigated in terms of monthly and seasonal variations and the future change was discussed based on absolute and relative changes. Both analyses show that the Southern Indian Ocean, despite experiencing extreme events and having higher wave energy potential, is more stable in terms of both short and long-term variation and change. The assessment of the total and exploitable storages of wave energy and their future change revealed the higher potential and higher stability of the nearshores of the Southern Indian Ocean. It can be concluded that based on various factors, the south of Sri Lanka, Horn of Africa, southeast Africa, south of Madagascar and Reunion and Mauritius islands are the most suitable areas for wave energy extraction.

Wave Energy Resource Assessment for Exploitation—A Review

“…Particular attention was furthermore dedicated to uncertainties in the evaluation of the available and expected powers associated with (i) wave-climate temporal variability, (ii) coastal physical processes (such as wave-current interactions), (iii) model implementation and (iv) energy extraction. Although future wave-climate projections may be exploited to conduct sustainability analysis of WEC in relation to climate change e.g., [26,27], these investigations were disregarded in the present review primary dedicated to hindcast-historical studies that integrate reduced levels of uncertainties. Beyond a simple comparison of advantages and drawbacks of a series of resource studies, this review highlighted the potential of exploiting different data for conducting improved resource assessments, thus promoting original resource characterizations and analyses.…”

Linking the long-term variability in global wave energy to swell climate and redefining suitable coasts for energy exploitation

“…The re-analysis wind dataset of the JRA-55 model with the spatial and temporal resolutions of 60 km and 6 h, respectively, was used to force the numerical wave model i.e., SWAN (Simulating WAves Nearshore) Cycle III version 41.31 56 . Although SWAN has been developed to simulate the wave characteristics in nearshore, it has been successfully adopted to generate the oceanic wave climate as well 20 , 21 , 57 . The simulation was performed for the period of 1958–2019 and covered the whole globe.…”

“…Hence, it is necessary to investigate the offshore/coastal climate variability for future planning, prevention, and mitigation of natural disasters 13 , 14 . Furthermore, assessing the intra-annual variability in wind and wave climate can be used for zone classification of a certain domain 15 – 19 , whereas the long-term change is also necessary for defining the stability and sustainability of wave climate and energy 8 , 9 , 20 – 23 . Although wave energy assessment has been suggested by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 24 to be performed for a minimum of 10 years, long-term variability of wind and wave climate is mainly investigated using a time span of about 30 years in order to reduce the uncertainties associated with climate variability 25 .…”

Learning from small islands in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO): A systematic review of responses to environmental change

“…They differ in size, physical geography, population, culture, international position, political status (i.e. Small Island Developing States, dependent islands and Sub-National Island Jurisdictions), economy, human development and type of governance (see Table 1 for a comparison of small islands in the WIO) (Anckar, 2013;Bouchard et al, 2019;Kamranzad et al, 2020).…”