Cooperative Participatory Evaluation of Renewable Technologies on Ecosystem Services (CORPORATES).

在增加使用可再生能源的雄心勃勃、具有法律约束力的目标的推动下，海上风能的扩张已成为英国的一个关键政策问题，并正在吸引企业的大量投资。然而，将大片海域用作风力发电场可能会对海洋生态系统和依赖这些生态系统的许多物种产生影响，从沙鼠到海鸟，以及这些生态系统提供的重要服务，如渔业和娱乐。因此，许多利益相关者可能会受到新风电场的影响，包括商业、政府、自然保护和社区利益。根据风力发电场的位置不同，需要在这些好处之间做出不同的权衡。生态研究人员已经开发出海洋模型，可以预测增加100个基于重力的大型风车将如何改变海底沉积物的运动和积累模式，以及在哪些位置将发生足以影响浮游生物(海洋食物链的基础)产生的水文变化。从以前的研究中，我们可以预测沙丁鱼、海鸟和海洋哺乳动物分布的相应变化。经济学家和社会科学家已经开发出吸收生态证据的方法，以评估大规模变化对利益攸关方的生态系统服务影响，例如在农业实践中(贝特曼等人。2013科学341：45-50)。他们一起评估如何从社会、文化、经济和法律上看待陆地环境中生态系统服务的变化。然而，在海洋环境中，由于大型近海开发还处于起步阶段，海洋可再生能源行业目前没有一个既定的或标准化的程序来评估替代海上风电场地点所固有的生态、经济和文化权衡。该项目汇集了来自阿伯丁大学、苏格兰海洋科学协会、詹姆斯·赫顿研究所和苏格兰海洋科学公司的领先的生态、经济、社会文化和法律专家，以及3家海洋可再生能源公司：Segreen、Repsol和主流RP。该小组将共同开发一个决策支持系统，以评估海洋环境中生态系统服务的大规模变化。利用苏格兰福斯湾的案例研究，这些合作伙伴将把广泛的利益相关者(渔业、海洋生物非政府组织、当地社区领袖和环境企业)聚集在一起，制定不同类型的证据，讨论不同和共享的价值观，并评估不同的空间风力发电场情景，为决策提供参考。在项目的核心将有两个讲习班；第一个讲习班利用这一领域的大量现有数据，以发展对社会生态系统的共同理解。第二部分将探讨不同风力涡轮机配置场景下的生态系统服务权衡。这个项目将提供一个难得的机会，提供所需的互动，以加强企业和利益相关者在实际情况下对生态系统服务的理解，并在正确的时间立即实施。企业项目将就如何运行这一过程提供用户指南，以便它可以成为行业的标准化工具。这可以给行业带来实质性的好处，因为商业计划可以更好地与不同的利益相关者利益和公共价值观保持一致，增加对计划的支持，降低冲突的风险，并提高公司的声誉。该项目还将帮助企业更好地考虑和理解生态系统为我们提供的许多服务的价值及其为人类福祉带来的好处，从而更可持续地利用海洋环境。

Driven by ambitious, legally binding targets for increased use of renewable energy, the expansion of offshore wind energy has become a key policy issue in the UK, and is attracting substantial investment from businesses. However, the use of large areas of the sea for wind farms can impact on marine ecosystems and on the many species that depend on these ecosystems, from sandeels to seabirds, and the important services these ecosystems provide, such as fisheries and recreation. As a result, many stakeholders might be affected by new wind farms, including commercial, government, nature conservation and community interests. Depending on where wind farms are located, different trade-offs between these benefits will need to be made. Ecological researchers have developed oceanographic models that can predict how the addition of 100s of large gravity based windmills will change the movement and accumulation patterns of bottom sediment and in what locations there will be hydrographic changes sufficient to affect the amount of plankton (the base of the marine food chain) produced. From previous research, we can predict the consequential changes in the distributions of sandeels, seabirds and marine mammals.Economists and social scientists have developed ways of assimilating ecological evidence to assess the ecosystem services impacts on stakeholders of large scale changes, such as in agricultural practices (Bateman et al. 2013 Science 341:45-50). Together they evaluate how changes in ecosystem services in terrestrial settings are viewed socially, culturally, economically and legally. However, in the marine environment, and because of the infancy of large offshore developments, marine renewable energy industries do not currently have an established or standardised process to evaluate the ecological, economic and cultural trade-offs inherent in alternative locations of offshore windfarms. This project brings together leading ecological, economic, social-cultural, and legal experts from the University of Aberdeen, the Scottish Association for Marine Science, the James Hutton Institute and Marine Scotland Science with 3 marine renewable energy companies; Seagreen, Repsol & MainStream RP. Together, this group will co-develop a decision-support system to assess large scale changes in ecosystem services in the marine environment. Using a case study of the wider Firth of Forth, Scotland, where there are plans for a Marine Protected Area in the same location as the windfarms, these partners will bring together a wide range of stakeholders (fishing industry, marine wildlife NGOs, local community leaders and environmental businesses) to map out different types of evidence, discuss their different and shared values and evaluate different spatial wind farm scenarios to inform decisions. At the core of the projects there will be 2 workshops; the first of which uses the rich amount of existing data for this area to develop a common understanding of the social-ecological system. The 2nd will explore ecosystem service trade-offs under different wind turbine configuration scenarios. This project will facilitate the rare opportunity of providing the interaction needed to enhance business's and stakeholder's understanding of ecosystem services in the context of a real situation at just the right time for immediate implementation.The CORPORATES project will produce a user's guide on how to run this process, so that it can become a standardised tool for the industry. This can bring substantial benefits to industry, as business plans can be better aligned to different stakeholder interests and communal values, increasing support for plans, reducing the risk of conflict and improving the reputation of the company. The project will also help businesses take better account and understanding of the value of the many services that ecosystems provide us and the benefits they bring to human wellbeing, leading to more sustainable use of the marine environment.