Limited Evidence Base for Determining Impacts (Or Not) of Offshore Wind Energy Developments on Commercial Fisheries Species

Abstract

The coexistence between offshore wind and fisheries has raised questions about potential impacts on species that are fished. We systematically evaluated the offshore wind farm (OWF) literature for evidence of effects leading to impacts on commercial fisheries species. First, we collated evidence of environmental effects of OWFs on fisheries species and then determined whether these could be interpreted as impacts using fishery-scale and organism-scale parameters for pelagic finfish, demersal and reef-associated roundfish, demersal flatfish, elasmobranchs and shellfish. We appraised consistency and level of agreement of direct evidence and explored the body of indirect evidence. A total of 1268 documents featured evidence of OWF effects on fisheries species, with only 60 documents (274 species records) providing direct evidence. Evidence on finfish far outweighed that for shellfish. Demersal and reef-associated roundfish were the best-studied group, while elasmobranchs were poorly evidenced. Most studies considered population rather than stock parameters. There was limited evidence of impacts, owing to inconclusive results and inconsistent effects within the parameters assessed—illustrating the importance of looking across the evidence base rather than focussing on individual studies. Hence, there is currently insufficient direct evidence to confidently determine OWF impacts on fisheries species. Overwhelmingly, the evidence deals with indirect effects, although these should not be disregarded as they can highlight plausible impacts on fisheries species, which could guide research and monitoring targeted at understanding the impacts of OWF—a pressing concern given the increased policy commitment of many nations to these two marine sectors sharing marine space.