Development of a standardised marine mammal monitoring system for the tidal energy industry

许多国家制定了雄心勃勃的可再生能源目标，预计海上能源将成为其中的重要组成部分；例如，据估计，英国五分之一的电力供应可能来自海洋(波浪和潮汐)资源。然而，潮汐涡轮机对海洋野生动物(特别是海豹、鲸鱼和海豚)的环境影响在很大程度上是未知的。一个主要的担忧是海洋哺乳动物可能会与旋转的涡轮叶片相撞，导致受伤或死亡。关键是要通过收集海洋哺乳动物在运行中的潮汐涡轮机周围的水下运动数据来了解这种担忧是否成立。收集这些数据极具挑战性，可用于测量海洋哺乳动物在水下的运动以及与潮汐涡轮机相互作用的方法有限。然而，少数尖端技术有能力在水下探测和跟踪海洋哺乳动物；这些技术包括水下视频、主动和被动声学跟踪。该项目将在潮汐能行业集成这套技术的基础上，设计和建造标准化的海洋哺乳动物检测和跟踪系统。该系统将根据收集的数据进行标准化设计，但将具有灵活性，以确保它可以集成到一系列不同的潮汐涡轮机设计中，并可以部署在各种不同的潮汐环境中。实际上，该系统将被设计为“即插即用”，这样它就可以很容易地与未来的潮汐涡轮机集成，并且可以在对涡轮机运行影响最小的情况下进行部署和回收。此外，为确保该系统收集的数据标准化，从而在今后的监测研究之间进行比较，将提供一系列开放源码和免费提供的数据集数据存档和分析工具。总体而言，该项目旨在提供一种独特的监测工具，为潮汐能源行业提供可能需要的数据收集系统，作为其同意监测条件的一部分，并将为监管机构提供证据基础，以便在潮汐能源开发的同意过程中就海洋哺乳动物碰撞风险做出明智的决定。关键词：潮汐水流能源、潮汐涡轮机、海洋哺乳动物、碰撞风险、影响评估、声纳、视频、水听器、海豹、海豚、江豚、行为、水下跟踪利益相关者：监管机构、潮汐开发商、法定顾问、苏格兰政府、苏格兰自然遗产、自然资源威尔士、亚特兰蒂斯资源有限公司

Many countries have set ambitious renewable energy targets with offshore sources anticipated to form an important part of this; for example, it is estimated that one fifth of the electrical supply in the UK could come from marine (wave and tidal stream) resources. However, the environmental impacts of tidal turbines on marine wildlife (particularly seals, whales, and dolphins) is largely unknown. One major concern is the potential for marine mammals to collide with the rotating turbine blades causing injury or death. It is critical to learn whether this concern is valid by collecting data on the underwater movements of marine mammals around operating tidal turbines. Collecting these data is extremely challenging and available methods for measuring movements of marine mammals underwater and interactions with tidal turbines are limited. However, a small number of cutting-edge technologies have the ability to detect and track marine mammals underwater; these are underwater video, and active- and passive-acoustic tracking. This project will design and build a standardised marine mammal detection and tracking system based on the integration of this suite of technologies for the tidal energy industry. The system will be designed to be standardised in terms of the data collected but will be flexible to ensure it can be integrated into a range of different tidal turbine designs and can be deployed in a variety of different tidal environments. Effectively, the system will be designed to be 'plug and play' so that it can be integrated easily with future tidal turbines, and can be deployed and retrieved with minimal impact to turbine operation. Further, to ensure that the data collected by the system is standardised and therefore comparable between future monitoring studies, a series of open source and freely available data archiving and analysis tools for the datasets will be provided. Overall, this project aims to deliver a unique monitoring tool that will provide the Tidal Energy Industry with a data collection system that may be required as part of their consent monitoring conditions, and will provide regulatory authorities with the evidence base upon which to make informed decisions about marine mammal collision risk during the consenting process for tidal energy developments.keywords: tidal stream energy, tidal turbines, marine mammals, collision risk, impact assessments, sonar, video, hydrophones, seals, dolphins, porpoises, behaviour, underwater trackingstakeholders: Regulators, Tidal Developers, Statutory Advisors, Scottish Government, Scottish Natural Heritage, Natural Resources Wales, Atlantis Resources Ltd