Cumulative ecological effects assessment of offshore wind farms (COWF)

确定人类活动对环境的累积效应（CE）需要考虑单个活动或多个活动的综合影响。在海洋环境中尤其如此，因为许多现有活动（如捕鱼、集料、海洋保护区、气候变化）对环境产生影响，而较新的发展（如海上风力发电场）正在被纳入人类活动对环境影响的总体足迹。目前的基线信息不佳，CE评估方法分散，导致分析高度不确定，环境风险增加。海洋政策和立法已明确确定CE和未来战略优先事项中与气候变化的潜在相互作用。该项目的目的是汇集现有的和新的实验室研究的证据，对底栖生物和它们所属的社区的多种压力，并在最近制定的CE框架内对不同环境影响下的底栖社区进行实地评估。为了实现这一目标，该项目为拟议的博士生制定了一系列研究活动，其中包括加入一个现有的国际经验丰富的实验室团队，研究多种压力源（与气候变化有关）对底栖生物群落的影响，并通过概念框架添加自己的元素。还将进行一项补充研究，对比来自两种非常不同的人类活动的底栖生物群落数据：骨料开采和海上风电场开发。Cefas将培训学生并提供汇总数据，CU和比利时合作伙伴（皇家比利时自然科学研究所）将处理海上风电场及其对底栖生物的影响。将两个不同的数据研究放在一起，将使学生能够在框架的背景下确定研究之间的联系，从而提供一个基于证据的方法来制定一个现实的CE评估框架，供海洋环境相关的决策者应用。

Determining the cumulative effects (CE) of human activity on the environment requires the combined impacts of a single activity or multiple activities to be considered. This is particularly true in the marine environment where many existing activities (e.g. fishing, aggregates, MPAs, climate change) impact the environment and newer developments (e.g. offshore wind farms) are being integrated into the overall anthropogenic footprint of effects on the environment. There is currently poor baseline information and a fragmented approach to CE assessment, which leads to highly uncertain analysis and increased environmental risk. Marine policy and legislation has clearly identified CE and potential interactions with climate change among the strategic priorities for the future. This projects aims to bring together evidence from existing and new laboratory studies of multiple stressors on benthic organisms and the communities they are part of and field based assessments of benthic communities under different environmental impact within a recently developed CE framework. To achieve the aim the project sets out a sequence of research activities for the proposed PhD student which includes joining an existing internationally experienced laboratory team studying effects on benthic communities of multiple stressors (relating to cliamte change) and adding their own elements identified through the conceptual framework. There will also be a complimentary study that will contrast benthic community data from two very different human activities: aggregate extraction and offshore wind farm developments. Cefas will train the student and provide access to aggregate data and CU and the Belgian partner (Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences) will deal with offshore wind farms and the effects on the benthos. Bringing together the two different data studies will allow the student to determine the linkages between the studies in the context of the framework, thereby providing an evidence-based approach to developing a realistic CE assessment framework for application by marine environment related decision makers.