Abstract
Many countries are in the process of installing offshore windmill farms to comply with the European obligations to get 20% of their electricity consumption out of renewables by 2020. Two companies already exploit part of their wind farm in the Belgian part of the North Sea, located in a predefined offshore zone near the Dutch EEZ border. As part of the environmental impact monitoring, we investigate the effect of the wind farms on the soft-bottom epibenthic and demersal fish fauna.