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European Plans for the Ocean Energy Sector – October 2014
17th October 2014
The European Commission has developed a two-step action plan to support the emerging ocean energy sector in Europe. In the first phase (2014 – 2016), an Ocean Energy Forum will be set up, which will bring together stakeholders to develop a shared understanding of the problems and to develop solutions. It will focus on building…
8th International GIScience conference
10th October 2014
In September, Marine Scotland Science staff attended the 2014 8th International Conference on Geographic Information Science (GIS),. The biennial conference, held in Vienna and hosted by the Austrian University of Technology brought together more than 600 international participants from academia, industry, and government organisations to discuss the state-of-the-art advances in the field of GIS. This…
New Publications on Marine Renewable Energy Developments
20th August 2014
Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) have recently completed two reports relating to marine renewable energy developments and their potential impact on the environment. These reports offer a risk assessment of the interaction between marine renewable devices and the diving birds and megafauna in the area. The first report, Commissioned Report No. 773. A Diving Bird Collision…
EIMR International Conference 2014 – Stornoway, Scotland
13th August 2014
The EIMR (Environmental Impacts of Marine Renewables) conference was held April 30 – May 1 2014 on the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides, Scotland, UK. Two hundred scientists from the UK, Europe, and North America came together at the An Lanntair Arts Centre in Stornoway, for two days of oral and poster presentations, with…
All Energy Conference 2014 – Combined Presentation
7th August 2014
Marine Scotland ran a session at the large All Energy conference in Aberdeen on 21 May. The session was based around the consenting of the Moray Firth wind farms, and included a series of short talks taking the audience through the licensing timetable, the basis for cumulative impact assessment, how we did CIA for…
Strategic Surveys of Seabirds off the West of Lewis to Determine Use of Seaspace in Areas of Potential Marine Renewable Energy Developments
7th August 2014
By 2020 the percentage of Scotland’s energy coming from renewable sources will increase. Studies have identified that there is a need to research how offshore renewable developments affect wildlife populations. The surveys presented here will help to find out how one area of marine development, the west coast of Lewis, is used by waterbirds and…
Marine Spatial Planning Update
16th June 2014
Pilot Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters Marine Spatial Plan A Working Group consisting of Marine Scotland, Highland Council and Orkney Islands Council have been working on developing a pilot marine spatial plan for the Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters, see www.scotland.gov.uk/PFOWmarinespatialplan. The Working Group produced two documents last year that went out for consultation. The…
Workshop on Physical Damage Indicator development for the Marine Strategy Framework Directive.
16th June 2014
Marine Biological Association, Plymouth 26-27 February 2014 Participants AFBI, MBA, Heriott-Watt University, Bioconstruct, University of Liverpool, JNCC, DEFRA, Natural England, BGS, BRGM, SEPA, CEFAS, MSS, Plymouth University, BFN, SNH, Natural Resources Wales, IECS, Museum National D’Histoire Naturelle, Cornwall IFCA, and DOENI were all represented. Aims: Mike Robertson attended a workshop intended to further develop a…
Bird collisions with wind turbines
26th March 2014
Collisions of birds with turbine blades is one of the big issues in environmental impact assessment of offshore wind farms. MS helped to establish a one year project at UHI Thurso on uncertainty in the models used to assess collision risk. Dr Liz Masden has a MREKE Fellowship to do the work. There have been…
FLOWW Best Practice Guidance for Offshore Renewables Developments
19th February 2014
The Fishing Liaison with Offshore Wind and Wet Renewables Group (FLOWW) was set up in 2002 to foster good relations between the fishing and offshore renewable energy sectors and to encourage co-existence between both industries. FLOWW’s objectives are to enable and facilitate discussion, discuss on matters arising from the interaction of the fishing and offshore…