Analysis of fish and fisheries data to assess the potential impact of offshore wind development on solway rivers

RESEARCH SPECIFICATION

Project No: WP AP 6

ANALYSIS OF FISH AND FISHERIES DATA TO ASSESS THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF OFFSHORE WIND DEVELOPMENT ON SOLWAY RIVERS

Research Specification

Analysis of fish and fisheries data to assess the impact of offshore wind development on Solway rivers

Introduction

1. This specification sets out the terms of reference for the research project “Analysis of fish and fisheries data to assess the impact of offshore wind development on Solway rivers”. The project will build upon the data collected and formatted under project WP AP 5 and undertake an analysis on the data to assess potential impacts of offshore wind on species of migratory fish. The project will also carry out power analysis on the available data to determine its ability to have detected any change and thereby inform the design of future monitoring programmes.

2. The Scottish Government has a target for 100% of Scottish demand for electricity to be met from renewables by 2020 by creating a balanced portfolio of both onshore and offshore technologies. The Robin Rigg wind farm development was the first major offshore wind farm development in Scotland. The development can produce approximately 180 Megawatts of electricity from 60 turbines. Robin Rigg is located on the Scottish side of the Solway Firth. It is 11 km from the nearest landfall at Balcary Point on the coast of Dumfries and Galloway, and is 13 km from the Cumbrian coast. Each of the 60 turbines are connected to offshore substations by subsea cables. These substations are connected to the local electricity distribution system by two 132kV cables. The cables come ashore near Seaton, Cumbria, where they run about 2km inland to a new onshore substation.

3. With this development came the opportunity to monitor and assess environmental impacts, to inform future decision making and monitoring plans. The potential for interactions of the development with salmon and sea trout was recognised late in planning of the environmental monitoring programme and a robust monitoring plan was not established in the way that it had been for birds and marine mammals. As such it was not possible to implement a robust and specifically tailored monitoring plan in the way that it had been for birds and marine mammals. Nevertheless, a range of data is available for the area (collected for other purposes) and there is a desire to establish the potential impacts of wind farm development to inform future policy decisions. Importantly, there is also a strong desire to apply lessons from Robin Rigg to inform the design of future monitoring plans. As such there is a requirement not only to analyse available data for potential impacts, but also to assess the statistical power of the data available to assess the environmental impact of the current development.

The Study

4. It is possible that wind farm developments could affect migratory fish through barrier effects caused by the introduction of new structures, electromagnetic fields and noise to the development area. A range of disparate data is available on salmonid fish populations in the area and there is a desire to analyse this data to provide information on the potential impacts of wind farm development and the ability of these data sources to detect any impacts.

5. The project will aim to analyse the relevant data identified in project WP AP 5 to assess the impact of the Robin Rigg offshore wind development on salmonids in the Solway area and to assess the power of the data to detect change. The results of the data analysis then need to be communicated in a clear, but scientifically robust manner, with a more general summary suitable for interpretation by non-specialists.

Aims

6. The aim of this research project is to analyse and report on the available data compiled into a common format for each data type (catch, counter and electro-fishing data) under a separate project (WP AP 5) in order to inform potential impacts of the Robin Rigg wind farm development on migratory fish species such as salmon and sea trout.

7. The project will provide information to assist Marine Scotland Licensing Operations Team, Science and Planning and Policy, as well as offshore wind developers, to assess the potential impacts of offshore wind farm developments on migratory fish species as part of the required environmental evaluations.

Objectives

8. The research objectives for this project are as follows:

·  carry out a preliminary assessment of available data and recommend analytical approaches;

·  agree the scope of the dataset to be analysed and the analyses to be performed with a nominated salmonid expert (presently Iain Malcolm) at Marine Scotland Science;

·  Perform analyses and produce a preliminary report for discussion with the nominated staff at MSS;

·  Produce a final report that summarises the analysis, the findings and makes recommendations for future monitoring.

9. The final report should be produced in close collaboration with MSS. Staff from Galloway Fisheries Trust (the contractor used to compile the data) and MSS (in the case of catch data) will be available throughout in case of queries regarding the data provided.

Methods

10. It is anticipated that the successful contractor will develop the proposal in line with the aims and objectives of the project and wider policy requirements. However, as a minimum it is anticipated that the contractor will be able to draw upon significant experience of analysing salmonid data including electrofishing, counter and rod catch data sources.

11. In the case of this contract, advanced statistical approaches will be required including the use of mixed models and generalised additive models incorporating auto-correlation.

12. The responses to the tender should include details of the approaches to be taken to the analysis of available datasets, consultation methods with MSS and previous experience of analysing datasets from different sources.

13. The contractor is encouraged to expand and develop their ideas based on the information presented here to fulfil the project requirements in the optimum manner.

Research Output

14. At the end of the contract, the successful contractor will provide the Scottish Government with the following outputs:

·  A draft final written report summarising methodology, results and findings together with final datasets and annotated R code used for analysis. The draft report should be submitted no less than one week before the end of the contract and should contain an Executive Summary suitable for interpretation by non-specialists.

·  Delivery of the draft and final reports should be supplied in hard copy and a disc copy of the final version in a format compatible with Microsoft Word. Final data files and annotated R code should be provided in electronic format.

·  All raw data should be provided both in tabulated form (e. g., Excel spreadsheets) and GIS format (shapefiles, including appropriate metadata).

Timing

15. It is envisaged that the study will begin in November 2012 and will be completed by January 2013.

Project Management

16. The project will be jointly managed by Marine Scotland Planning & Policy and Marine Scotland Science. Officials from both teams will meet via video or tele conference facilities with the contractor after the contract has been awarded with further meetings organised as necessary.

17. The contractor will be expected to engage in a close working relationship with Marine Scotland Science (Freshwater).

The following information is required for internal purposes only but must be provided.

Market capability

It is suggested that Poisson Consulting is chosen as the sole contractor for this project. This is because Poisson consulting has the unusual combination of fish and fisheries knowledge (having worked with all the types of data identified here) and a track record of delivering on statistically demanding contracts for MSS. In the case of this contract, advanced statistical approaches will be required including the use of mixed models and generalised additive models incorporating auto-correlation.

http://www. poissonconsulting. ca/

Expected cost

In discussion with the contractor, it is estimated that the work would take ca. 15 days at a rate of 62GBP per hour, with 8 chargeable hours per day, giving an estimated total cost of £7,440.

The contractor would be available to start work on the contract at the start of November (which would allow time for completion contract WP AP 5 to compile the data in agreed formats). A first draft of the report would be produced by the end of December.

Sustainable Development

This work will contribute to the Scottish Governments environmental objectives and will have a direct impact upon the sustainable development of offshore renewable energy in Scottish waters. The successful contractor should ensure that all project activities are carried out in the most sustainable manner possible, details of which should be provided on the specification.

Risks

There are no perceived risks from the work to the Scottish Government as it is an analysis of existing data, however the analysis could report previously unknown impacts on migratory fish species.

Intellectual Property Rights

Output and intellectual copyright will remain with the Scottish Government.