Investigation into the potential risk of entanglement of marine mammals with discarded fishing gear associated with floating offshore wind farms

The Offshore Wind Directorate invites a tender from a suitable contractor to define the risk of entanglement with discarded fishing gear around mooring lines at floating offshore wind farm (FOW) sites. The Scottish Government has set a range of targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions and to generate more energy from renewable sources. The Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2019 commits the Scottish Government to reach net zero emissions of all greenhouse gases by 2045. Offshore wind will play a vital part in meeting these targets, and is set to expand substantially in Scotland over the next decade and beyond, as evident by the recent ScotWind seabed leasing round by the Crown Estate Scotland. In January 2021 and through its clearing process in August 2022, Crown Estate Scotland has offered Option Agreements for 20 offshore wind projects around Scotland totalling 27.6GW of potential new offshore wind developments. The related offshore wind Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas (INTOG) decarbonisation planning and leasing process outlined a further 5.4GW of projects. It is Scottish Government policy to ensure that decisions are informed by the best available evidence and make reasonable effort to address any gaps in knowledge. There is a requirement on the marine licensing authority (Scottish Ministers) to have regard to the need to protect the environment as part of determining any marine licence. Furthermore, the evaluation of potential interactions between renewables projects, marine wildlife and other users of the sea is required and forms part of plan and project level assessments. The assessments include Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEA), Habitat Regulation Appraisals (HRA), Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) and Social and Economic Impact Assessments. The upcoming expansion of Offshore Wind in Scotland will include an increase in the scale of Floating Offshore Wind (FOW) developments due to sites being located in deeper waters. Given the relative youth of this technology, there is a paucity of empirical evidence to help inform environmental assessments of the potential impacts of these developments. This project will assess entanglement risk by using monitoring tools such as load cells, remote operated vehicles (ROV) and other tools to identify the snag rate of abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) on mooring lines of FOW developments. This will be coupled with modelling of density and distribution of ALDFG across Scottish shelf waters or estimation of snag rate at a given site based on data detailing potential sources, identified prevalence based on available data and oceanographic drift. Should substantial risk be identified, the project should also consider and suggest potential mitigation measures and any associated future research needs to deliver these. This project will contribute to the overall process of the sustainable expansion of floating offshore wind in Scottish waters by improving the evidence base for environmental assessments and build on previous work seeking to establish the risk of entanglement.