SMRU Marine, a spin-out of St Andrews University – in Scotland and not to be confused with St Andrews University in North Carolina – has developed a tool that lets companies, researchers and policymakers assess the impact of UK offshore renewable energy projects.
The Pcod model framework – an acronym for “population consequences of disturbance” and built on initial work by the US Office of Naval Research – specifically focuses on five marine mammals that are considered key to the UK offshore ecosystem. They are bottlenose dolphins, harbour porpoise, minke wale, harbour seals and grey seals.
Traditionally, renewable energy projects have only considered water quality and destruction of the habitat when considering new offshore developments. Pcod focuses on the long-term and large-scale effects of underwater noise during construction. This disturbance can force mammals to leave their habitat, change behaviour, and either suffer temporary or permanent hearing damage.
The tool was developed in collaboration with researchers at the university and the software is available to download for free. The Crown Estate, Marine Scotland Science, the Department for Energy and Climate Change, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Natural Resources Wales, Scottish Natural Heritage, and Natural England jointly commissioned and funded the project.
SMRU Marine was set up in 2006 and serves as the commercial arm for St Andrews University’s Sea Mammal Research Unit.
Cormac Booth, project leader and a principal scientist at SMRU Marine, said: “We are very excited about this study as it represents a great effort from SMRU Marine, the St Andrews University team and our international panel of experts. It is important to stress that while the interim Pcod framework is an exciting new tool, there is pressing need to collect more empirical data on the potential consequences of disturbance and hearing damage for marine mammal populations in order to refine and replace these opinion-based values. In its current form, this framework is not the final answer but instead represents the significant first step into a new kind of impact assessment tool available to government, industry and scientists.”
