Tools and Resources for Environmental Assessments

Webinar #15 in the Annex IV Environmental Webinar Series
Sponsored by Ocean Energy Systems (OES)
December 12, 2017 @ 16:00 - 17:30 UTC (8:00 am PT/11:00 am ET)

Summary
This webinar will discuss three tools that can be employed for environmental assessments. The first tool, RADMAPP, is a spatial data management, display and analysis tool allowing project developers, technology developers, regulators and other interested parties to ensure that renewable developments are optimised to find suitable sites and devices that match those sites from a technical aspect, whilst ensuring that environmental impacts on conservation, cultural heritage and socio-economic factors are minimised. The second tool from the United Kingdom is the Impact Assessment Tool (IMPACT), which allows users to identify the potential key environmental impacts associated with MRE developments and to access guidelines and recommendations for how best to assess, monitor and manage these impacts. The third tool is the Tethys Management Measures tool, developed by the United States and the United Kingdom as part of the Annex IV initiative, that can be used to generate a detailed list of potential management measures for addressing environmental concerns around marine renewable energy (MRE) deployments.

The presentation for the webinar is available here.

Webinar Presenters

Duncan Clarke, Head of GIS and Data Management, Aquatera
duncan.clarke@aquatera.co.uk
Duncan joined Aquatera in 2003 after graduating from the University of Liverpool with a BSc (Hons) in Marine Biology and subsequently undertaking postgraduate studies in Predictive Benthic Habitat Mapping in Orkney.  He has a great aptitude for data manipulation and management, as well as a wide understanding of marine and environmental processes.  Duncan has been a core team member in the development of Aquatera’s data management tools and its marine surveying activities and has been heavily involved with the development of Aquatera’s in house RADMAPP tool.  As the company has grown, so has Aquatera’s GIS and data related work.  Duncan currently heads up a small team of GIS technicians that process and interpret all of Aquatera’s (and Third Party’s) data.

Ian Hutchison, Director of Operations, Aquatera
ian.hutchison@aquatera.co.uk
Ian has acted as the Consents Manager and Licence Agent for a number of wave and tidal energy projects. This work has involved the production of a number of Environmental Assessments, HRAs, Decommissioning Plans and Environmental Mitigation and Monitoring Plans (EMMPs), requiring consultation and negotiation with regulators, agencies and stakeholders. As the Consents Manager, Ian has been responsible for the implementation and delivery of the EMMPs and discharge of consent conditions. As Director of Operations at Aquatera, he leads the Company’s input into a number of strategic initiatives focussed on better understanding, managing risk and reducing uncertainty around the potential impacts of wave and tidal energy projects on the marine environment.  This has included recent work for the Scottish Government and The Crown Estate in the UK as well as international bodies such as the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Ian currently sits on the European Commission’s Ocean Energy Environment and Consenting Workstream Steering Group and is the Secretariat Project Manager for the UK’s Offshore Renewables Joint Industry Programme (ORJIP) for Ocean Energy.

Andrea Copping, Senior Scientist, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
andrea.copping@pnnl.gov
Dr. Andrea E. Copping joined Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Marine Sciences Laboratory in Sequim in 2006, as the Senior Program Manager for marine and coastal waters. Andrea is the research lead for marine and hydrokinetic energy development, and for offshore wind development, for Pacific Northwest National Laboratories, on behalf of the US Department of Energy. Dr. Copping’s projects focus on environmental impacts from the development of wave, tidal, offshore wind, ocean current and riverine energy installations, and the role that these effects could play in technology development and project initiation across the nation. Using risk-based approaches, the marine and hydrokinetic and offshore wind team lead by Dr. Copping integrates laboratory, field and modeling measurements into a coherent body of evidence to support siting and permitting decisions. Dr. Copping works across several scientific disciplines to determine implications of human stressors on marine resources and ecosystems processes, working with stakeholder groups and resource managers to ensure that the available scientific information is accessible and available. Dr. Copping is an affiliate faculty member in the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs, University of Washington, and Associate Editor for the Coastal Management Journal.

A video of this webinar is available here: