Atlantic Offshore Wind Environmental Research Recommendations

Develop integrated methods and survey design to adapt long-term data collection to the presence of OSW structures. Survey methods include fisheries trawl, aerial and other baseline distribution and oceanographic surveys that could utilize autonomous monitoring methods.

Identify acoustic exposure and contextual conditions associated with potential acute response to OSW stressors, including a review of sound sources, assessment of potential exposure and susceptibility during different phases of development (including geophysical surveys for site assessment).

Validate and improve existing sound models, including sound propagation predictions, fleeing swim speeds, and associated uncertainty. Assess key sensitives for different models and standardize approaches.

Examine three-dimensional bird flight behavior around turbines, including avoidance at varying scales (micro-, meso-, macro), flight height and speed, and proportion of birds flying vs. sitting inside vs. outside wind farm, and the effects of environmental covariates on these patterns.

Examine animal responses to vessels (in the absence of piling activity) alongside received sound levels from vessels and information on ship density, type and proximity

Investigate the effects of OSW on foraging/feeding behaviors

Assess the extent of larval dispersal and connectivity among offshore installations and natural habitats

Examine whether offshore installations provide recruitment sites or nursery habitat for ecologically- or commercially-important species.

Assess whether phytoplankton primary production may be reduced due to an increase in turbidity reducing light penetration in the water column.

Assess whether habitat changes from offshore development affect populations of managed species through disruption of juvenile cod and black sea bass refuge habitats, or the creation of new black sea bass or cod habitat.

Assess amount of cable failure and repair/replacement requirements and degree of disturbance these entail.

Assess the importance of ecological impacts at different scales, ranging from local to broader regional scales, and implications at the ecosystems level.

Measure the positive and/or negative ecosystem effects of the displacement and aggregation of organic material from filter-feeding fouling fauna in OSW areas to guide future model developments.

Assess the types of ecosystem services provided by biological communities, especially benthic, associated with offshore installations.

Study how species detect/receive EMF, whether they respond to EMF (from both AC and DC cables) with changes in distributions or behavior, and whether those responses vary with factors such as EMF strength, cable burial depth, and floating/fixed technology.

Understand the effect of cable protections on the ecological function of benthic communities, including considerations relating to habitat loss beneath cable protection as well as infilling or colonization of rock protection.

Understand how the changed hydrodynamic conditions created by structures potentially affect lower trophic level marine life, including changes in food availability for filter-feeders.

Assess competing pressures of increased epifauna populations on primary productivity and nutrient cycling in local ecosystems associated with OSW development, including from the local to the broad scale.

Assess effects from sediment disturbance/resuspension (during construction) and sediment scouring (during operation) on the benthos, including mollusk, invertebrate, and finfish populations, with a focus on effects to activities such as filter feeding and recruitment.

Examine whether EMF emitted by OSW cables (iE and B fields) affect the ability of fish and invertebrate species to derive locational cues, navigate, or migrate, or otherwise affect distributions.

Evaluate the potential risk posed to marine life from OSW mooring lines, including interactions with commercial and recreational fishing and risk of secondary entanglement with derelict fishing gear caught on the cables

Explore the relationship between level of noise exposure and severity of resulting temporary and permanent threshold shifts (TTS/PTS) including changes in hearing threshold by frequency, changes in hearing bandwidth/range, and TTS recovery time.

"How do environmental factors like temperature, depth, and currents influence biodiversity on offshore infrastructure?"

Investigate the responses of mobile species (benthos, marine mammals) movement to operational OSW turbines using tracking, and active and passive acoustic monitoring, in order to better inform population models providing baseline against which to assess the population-level impacts.

Better understand recolonization timelines after benthic disturbance.

Assess potential effects (including attraction) of birds, bats, invertebrates, and fishes to lighting on wind turbines (fixed and floating, if they have different lighting requirements) and to lighting on OSW-related vessels.

Examine whether wind farms affect species composition, biomass and abundance at multiple scales (from individual wind farms to the broader region) in relation to turbine/wind farm proximity.

Evaluate trends in demographics, fitness (survival, reproduction), recruitment, and abundance for populations that are regularly exposed to fixed and floating OSW stressors.

Examine physiological changes with potential implications for fitness (such as changes in stress hormones) in relation to sound exposure

Develop state-of-the-art habitat models, coupled with bird observational count data to biotic and abiotic independent variables to assess potential alternatives for siting OSW development and to calculate the effects of OSW farms scenarios, including variations in the location of OWFs.

Assess whether changes in the underwater community (including changes in the distribution, availability and quality of prey) around turbine foundations affect the distribution, abundance, or diet of upper tropic level predators.

Assess use of offshore platforms and infrastructure by breeding seabirds as nesting habitat or for foraging. Tagging could be used to determine if birds using offshore structures are 1) flying through wind farms, and 2) whether their foraging is more energy efficient than coast-based birds.

Evaluate relative threat of mortality/injury from vessel strikes to marine mammals and sea turtles associated with OSW and non-OSW activities, including spatiotemporal patterns in vessel traffic throughout OSW project lifecycles.

Understand the conditions that influence the creation and location of the Mid Atlantic Cold Pool, and by examining the dynamic nature of the formation of the Cold Pool, develop a time-dependent understanding of overlap between the Cold Pool.

Identify and understand the acoustic frequency ranges of the sound sources that are of interest and in need of monitoring.

Examine diet composition of animals and primary prey species in and around OSW areas to inform understanding of the influence of changes in prey availability.

Determine movement patterns and levels of activity, including staging and migratory patterns, non-breeding season movement, residency times, and populations connectivity, relative use of offshore environment, and variation in patterns over space and time.

Monitor the baseline behavior patterns of animals in OSW areas

Conduct studies to characterize baseline flight patterns and height, including nocturnal activity and the potential factors influencing these patterns.

Assess the habitat use of animals at offshore locations during different phases of the lifecycle including breeding and non-breeding, feeding and spawning locations, etc.