Guidance Note 1: Guidance to support Offshore Wind Applications: Marine Ornithology - Overview

Published: 2023
Version 1: January 2023

This document is part of a series of guidance notes available on Advice on marine renewables development - marine ornithology.

This series of eleven guidance documents provides a core resource to inform offshore wind development proposals in Scotland. These guidance notes will take stakeholders and developers through each step of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Habitats Regulations Appraisal (HRA) processes to guide provision of the supporting information required to inform and support an application.

We have reflected on the previous information contained in applications, held workshops with industry and reviewed research project outputs and post consent monitoring results. These have all helped improve our understanding of interactions between marine birds and offshore wind energy developments. As our knowledge and evidence base continues to grow, we will continue to review and update our guidance and advice.

This note and flowchart (Figure 1) acts as a sign-posting document, helping identify what may be required at each stage of the assessment process when considering the impacts of offshore wind on marine bird species. 

For each stage, we have a corresponding guidance note that details the steps we advise are undertaken. In parallel to the individual project assessment, a cumulative/in-combination assessment should be undertaken in line with the Marine Scotland Cumulative Effects Framework (CEF) once available. We also provide an update log to these guidance documents, which will highlight when a new version has been published to account for new evidence, and specifically, what changes have been made.

The CEF expected completion date is March 2023.

Please note this guidance was written prior to the development of a NatureScot position on how to account for the ongoing Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) mortality event within an impact assessment. We are currently developing this advice and will provide updates and guidance as they become available. In the interim please contact [email protected] should you have any specific queries.

Marine Bird Guidance Log

 

Guidance Note

Version Number

Date of Version

Summary of update

1: Overview – Marine Ornithology Overview

1.1

 

First version

2: Advice for Marine Ornithology Baseline Characterisation Surveys and Reporting

1.1

 

First version

3: Marine Ornithology - Identifying theoretical connectivity with Special Protection Areas using breeding season foraging ranges

1.1

 

First version

4: Marine Ornithology - Determining Connectivity of Marine Birds with Marine Special Protection Areas and Key Considerations for Assessment

1.1

 

First version

5: Marine Ornithology - Recommendations for Marine Bird Population Estimates 

1.1

 

First version

6: Marine Ornithology - Impact Pathways for Offshore Wind Developments

1.1

 

First version

7: Marine Ornithology Advice for assessing collision risk of marine birds

1.1

 

First version

8: Marine Ornithology Advice for assessing the distributional responses, displacement and barrier effects of Marine birds

1.1

 

First version

9: Marine Ornithology Advice for Seasonal Definitions for Birds in the Scottish Marine Environment

1.1

 

First version

10: Marine Ornithology Advice for apportioning impacts to breeding colonies

 

 

To be completed, anticipated March 2023

11: Marine Ornithology - Recommendations for Seabird Population Viability Analysis (PVA)   

1.1

 

First version

These guidance notes set out our advice pertaining to the impact assessments for marine birds. We expect each and every developer to adhere to this guidance, including the recommended parameters to provide consistent and comparable results for all Scottish projects to be assessed for an individual project and cumulatively with other projects. 

The focus of these documents are marine birds unless another species grouping is specified. For the purpose of these guidance notes, we consider marine birds to encompass both seabirds and waterfowl (i.e. divers, grebes and seaducks). Other species such as waders and geese that use intertidal or coastal environments may require assessment with respect to project element such as cable connections to terrestrial infrastructure. In addition, for migratory species that may pass through offshore developments areas further advice will be available through the Strategic Study of Collision Risk for Birds on Migration in Scottish Waters being led by ScotMer, which is due for completion in April 2023. For clarity we ask that our definitions are adhered to.

Presentation considerations 

We advise the use of embedded hyperlinks to aid navigation between the main bird chapters and associated appendices within the EIA Report and HRA. Where tables are used column titles should be standardised as far as possible to allow comparisons to be made where this is appropriate. Guidance is provided on further presentational requirements where relevant within specific guidance notes.  

For any queries on this or any of the other guidance notes in this series, please contact: [email protected] 

Overview

We present a series of 11 guidance documents. These can be broadly categorised as guidance notes on input data, modelling impacts, apportioning predicted impacts and population modelling. The following is a long description for the overview flow chart. Each document is linked below with a short summary of their contents, as outlined below and summarised in Figure 1:

Input data

  • c) Foraging Ranges web-based GIS tool user guide

Modelling Impacts

Apportioning predicted impacts

Population Modelling

Figure 1: Flow chart which details each element of the assessment process and associated guidance documents (elements which have guidance documents associated are in bold black boxes, solid lines indicate where one box feeds into the next step, dotted lines indicate they feed into several steps and/or steps further along in the assessment process).

Full description to follow next
Figure 1: Flow chart which details each element of the assessment process and associated guidance documents
Click for a full description

Figure 1: Flow chart which details each element of the assessment process and associated guidance documents (elements which have guidance documents associated are in bold black boxes, solid lines indicate where one box feeds into the next step, dotted lines indicate they feed into several steps and/or steps further along in the assessment process)

Cumulative Effects Framework (CEF)

Input data

a. Development Scenarios:  Footprint, Turbine numbers, Turbine parameters
b. At sea surveys (aerial, boat)
c. Tagging data
d. Connectivity - associated guidance document
e. Foraging Ranges
f. Baseline characterisation - Density data - associated guidance document
g. Colony counts/Popn estimates - associated guidance document
h. Bird biological parameters

Modelling impacts

i. Overall impacts - associated guidance document
j. Collision risk modelling Breeding and Non-breeding - associated guidance document
k. Displacement Assessment Breeding and Non-breeding - associated guidance document

Apportioning predicted impacts

l. Apportioning impacts - Breeding - Non-breeding - Colony - associated guidance document
m. Predicted Displacement Impact - Breeding - Non-breeding
n. Predicted Collision Impact - Breeding - Non-breeding
o. Estimated overall impacts on survival and productivity

Popn modelling

p. PVA - associated guidance document

Determination

q. NatureScot advice
r. Application determination

Contact

Marine Energy

[email protected]