Developing an ecological risk‐based approach to facilitate licensing offshore wind development

<p>Policy measures influence the spatial and temporal deployment of wind energy often more than the geo-economical potential. On the national level, the design of renewable energy support schemes mostly determines the most promising locations for investments. These national instruments also interplay with regulation on the local and municipal level, including land development plans, licensing regimes, and local renewable energy targets. While modeling sometimes focuses on the national level, local regulations are most often absent from the analysis. Controversially, measures at the different administrative levels simultaneously foster and hinder the deployment of wind energy in some regions.</p><p>The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, we categorize policy measures at different administrative levels that influence the spatial expansion of wind energy. We uncover at which stage of the planning process these instruments play a role and by which mechanism they influence the spatial distribution and the development time. Second, we present and evaluate techniques to reflect such policy measures in spatial and temporal scenario models and discuss how to generalize them across countries and/or jurisdictions. Third, we apply these modelling techniques on the German case to gain insights on the pros and cons of different modelling approaches. The case study incorporates first scenarios from the Kopernikus project Ariadne.</p>

This paper takes the move from the uncertainty surrounding ecosystem thresholds and addresses the issue of ecosystem-state assessment by means of ecological integrity indicators and 'ecological risk'. The concept of 'ecological risk' gives a measure of the likelihood of ecosystem failure to provide the level of natural ecological goods and services expected/desired by human societies. As a consequence of human pressures (use of resources and discharge into the environment), ecosystem thresholds can be breached thus resulting in major threats to human health, safety and well-being. In this study we apply the concept of 'ecological risk' to two case-studies in the German exclusive economic zone: eutrophication and construction of offshore wind farms. The effects of different future scenarios for single-uses upon ecosystem integrity are analysed as well as the effects of one combined scenario. We conclude that in the short term construction of offshore wind farms can influence some processes to a much larger degree than eutrophication, however, combined impacts deriving from eutrophication and offshore wind farm construction need a more detailed analysis. Due to non-linear ecosystem processes, effects of combined or multiple uses of marine resources in terms of 'ecological risk', cannot be extrapolated from single-use scenarios.

To evaluate the ecological risk of heavy metals in the soil-crop system in the superimposed high background and human activities from pyrite mining, the heavy metal contents and chemical speciation in soil and crop samples were analyzed, and these data were used to assess the potential ecological risk and factors affecting the migration ability of heavy metals using bioconcentration factors(BCF), potential ecological risk index(RI), risk assessment code(RAC), and correlation analysis. The results indicate that the average Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn concentrations exceeded the background values of soils in Zhejiang Province and China. Cd had the greatest potential ecological harm, followed by that of Hg. The bioactive components and potential bioactive components of Cd accounted for 46% and 33%, respectively, indicating relatively high bioavailability. Cu and Pb were mainly in potential bioactive components accounting for 60% and 73%, respectively. The As, Cr, Hg, Ni, and Zn were predominantly residual and accounted for >60%, which indicated low biological activity. The RAC levels were in the following order:Cd>Zn>Cu>Pb>Ni>As>Cr>Hg; soil Cd had the highest ecological risk, mainly with high and extremely high levels, whereas other elements had no risk or low risk. Compared with Cd content in soil, only eight rice samples had Cd contents exceeding the safety limit, and sweet potato samples did not exceed the standard. The migration and enrichment capability of rice in order from strong to weak was s follows:Cd>Zn>Cu>Hg>As>Ni>Cr>Pb; the bioactive component of Cd played a significant role in promoting Cd absorption by rice. Soil OM had a bi-directional effect on Cd bioavailability, whereas soil texture had an indirect effect. This comprehensive study shows that the total amount of heavy metals in soil, chemical speciation, biological activities, absorption, and enrichment of heavy metals by crops should be taken into consideration when assessing the ecological risks in the superimposed areas affected by high background and human activities, such as the pyrite mining area.

Epipelic and epipsammic benthic habitats play a critical role in estuarine ecosystem functioning by regulating nutrient cycling, stabilizing sediments, and supporting primary production. However, these habitats remain poorly studied in Indian estuaries, particularly in the Tapi Estuary, despite increasing anthropogenic pressures. The present study aimed to evaluate the benthic biodiversity of epipelic and epipsammic habitats in the Tapi Estuary and to assess their ecological significance in relation to environmental and seasonal variations. Quarterly sampling was conducted at selected reference and impacted locations within the Tapi Estuary during post-monsoon, winter, and summer seasons. Sediment samples were analyzed for biological parameters, focusing on algal communities and meio- to macrofaunal assemblages. Habitat characteristics and species–environment relationships were examined to identify key regulatory factors influencing community structure. The study revealed distinct spatial and seasonal variations in benthic assemblages. Periphyton density ranged from [89–6336 units/m2 in Epipelic region and 96 – 2458 units/m2 in Epissamic region, while meiofaunal (Zoobenthic) abundance varied between 52 – 550 Number/m2 in Epipelic region and 25 – 284 Number/m2 in Epissamic region across seasons. Impacted locations exhibited reduced diversity and dominance of pollution-tolerant taxa, indicating stress from industrial and domestic effluents. This study represents one of the first integrated assessments of epipelic and epipsammic biodiversity in the Tapi Estuary. The findings highlight the potential of benthic communities as sensitive indicators of water quality and ecosystem health, providing valuable baseline data for estuarine monitoring, management, and conservation under escalating anthropogenic influence.

Rapid urban development and human activities have led to drastic changes in land use, resulting to heightened ecological pressures and risks to ecosystems, especially in cities along the lower reaches of the Yellow River (CLRYR), China. However, the landscape pattern and associated ecological risks in the CLRYR in the past twenty years remain unclear. In this study, we employed the land use data to identify the primary landscape types and their transformations, providing an in-depth analysis of the prevailing landscape pattern and the landscape ecological risk (LER) in the CLRYR. Additionally, we explored the spatial distribution of LER and investigated the underlying driving forces behind these changes. The results reveal that: (1) Cropland is the main landscape type in the CLRYR region; however, the area of cropland decreases with the transition to impervious. (2) Due to human activities, landscape fragmentation and diversity have gradually increased in CLRYR, while aggregation has gradually decreased, until there was some improvement between 2015 and 2020. (3) The LER in the CLRYR region exhibits instability, with values of 0.1761, 0.1751, 0.1760, 0.1773, and 0.1751 displaying a fluctuating downward trend. Directional distribution analysis indicates a movement of the LER center of gravity towards the mouth of the Yellow River, accompanied by an increasing dispersion pattern. Analysis of driving forces suggests that natural factors hold greater explanatory power compared to social factors. Moreover, interaction detection results reveal that the combined effect of any two factors surpasses that of a single factor. The findings offer a theoretical foundation for enhancing planning policies aimed at striking a balance between environmental preservation and social advancement within the CLRYR region.

The aim of this paper is to identify facilitating and hindering factors for onshore wind energy development near natural conservation regions, in particular in Lower Saxony's Wattenmeer region. An applied research approach was deployed to connect individual aspects of wind energy technology and establish a cross-disciplinary perspective on the expansion of wind energy. To this end, relevant facilitating and hindering factors were identified and then validated by a group of academic experts. The main factors were grouped within the framework of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. In a subsequent step, a sample of experts in the wind power sector evaluated the relative importance of the key factors, using an Analytic Hierarchy Process. The results show that factors positively influencing wind energy expansion exceed the hindering factors. Wind electricity is likely to benefit from opportunities such as climate change and from industry-specific strengths, for instance the competitiveness of wind in the German electricity market. Barriers and uncertainties that influence the further development of the sector relate to strict ecological protection laws and limited spatial opportunities for new projects. Finally, basic policy strategies were formulated which aim at fostering strengths and opportunities of wind energy development and at reducing weaknesses and threats.

BackgroundTo achieve climate targets, a transition to low-carbon energy production is necessary. However, conflicts between different interests, values and priorities, particularly at the community level, can constrain this transition. This paper aims to analyze lines of conflict and opportunities to build bridges between conflicting interests in the expansion of wind energy in Germany at the local level, to achieve successful implementation of wind energy projects.ResultsOur analysis of four cases of local-level wind energy projects in Germany shows that limited local options for action reinforce the need for local actors to maximize the benefits of energy transition projects. In addition to the conflict over scarce space, the lines of conflict at the local level run primarily along the dimensions of costs and benefits, winners and losers. Real or perceived procedural and distributive injustices had the potential to fuel resistance to wind energy projects in the analyzed cases. However, wind energy projects were successfully implemented despite the presence of local opposition.ConclusionsThe results show that, by integrating procedural and distributive justice into the project planning and implementation and offering tailored solutions, community support for expansion of renewable energy projects can be enhanced. The paper advances the concept of societal ownership (“gesellschaftliche Trägerschaft”), which suggests the willingness of members of a community to tolerate decisions even when some conflicts related to the decision remain unresolved. Societal ownership is presented as an alternative to the concept of simple acceptance; it implies a more positive, more supportive community attitude, where members aim to address conflict as a normal aspect of decision making. Rather than sweeping alternative opinions aside, the community addresses alternative viewpoints, seeking to achieve greater procedural and distributive justice. In this way, a sense of societal ownership of a project can develop, enhancing its likelihood of success.

The development and expansion of wind energy is considered a key threat to bat populations in North America and globally. Several approaches to mitigating the impacts of wind energy development on bat populations have been developed, including curtailing wind turbine operation at night during lower wind speeds when bats are thought to be more active. Blanket curtailment approaches have shown substantial promise in reducing bat fatalities at wind energy facilities, but they also reduce the amount of energy extracted from the wind by turbines. A related approach, referred to as smart curtailment, uses bat activity and other variables to predict when bats will be at the greatest risk at a given wind facility. In some contexts, a smart curtailment approach might reduce bat fatalities while also reducing energy loss relative to blanket curtailment. However, it has not been clear how to compare blanket curtailment and smart curtailment approaches in terms of annual energy production at wind facilities. Here, we describe a new approach to simulating the influence of blanket and smart curtailment approaches on energy production at wind energy facilities, and demonstrate the approach using 6 wind energy development areas in the Canadian province of Alberta. We show how stakeholders involved can explore the potential influences of various kinds of bat activity on energy production. We present the results of our Alberta analysis and conclude with some caveats and recommendations for future work on simulating the influences of bat curtailment on energy production at wind energy facilities.

The growth of wind power as an aspect of Minnesota’s portfolio of electricity has been propelled to its current level by policy initiatives at both the federal and state levels. Existing statutes establish requirements for further expansion of wind energy in this state in the years to come. Locally, production economics exert their influence as wind speed and duration are translated to capacity factor, which reveals the amount of power that can be generated at a particular site. After the flow resource is thus quantified, comes the calculus of economic viability. This consists of determining the capital and operating costs and eligibility for loans and grants as well as the negotiations of wind rights, easements, and power purchase agreements. To date, policy initiatives have been directed toward the production, or generation side of this variable flow resource. Entrepreneurs and lawyers have become more skillful at organizing business forms that can effectively bring together partners capable of utilizing the substantial tax benefits available through the federal Production Tax Credit (PTC) as well as attractive state-sponsored incentives and tariffs offered by utilities. The variable nature of electrical power capacity from wind has been problematic for utilities, which try to meet the variable loads required by the summed demand of their customers. In Minnesota, peak power demands occur in summer months when wind power is the lowest. In addition to seasonal demands, daily and weekly patterns must be accommodated by utilities serving the markets for electricity. By developing and using an investment model, it is possible to understand investor motivations driving the growth of wind energy in this state and the country. Net present values (NPV) and internal rates of return (IRR) are calculated over the life of power production projects conforming to various conditions such as wind capacity factor, the federal Production Tax Credit (PTC), state incentive plans for community-based energy providers, federal grant and loan programs, as well as emerging opportunities to sell “green tags” for renewable power generation. The numerous incentives provided for windpower development on the generation side highlight the difficulties of providing sufficient transmission capacity for to carry this power from the often remote areas where generated to load centers. Equivalent incentives deployed with similar imagination are needed to enhance investment in a transmission system capable of carrying increasing volumes of wind and other renewable sources of electricity.

China's coastal zone plays an important role in ecological services production and social-economic development; however, extensive and intensive land resource utilization and land use change have lead to high ecological risk in this area during last decade. Regional ecological risk assessment can provide fundamental knowledge and scientific basis for better understanding of the relationship between regional landscape ecosystem and human activities or climate changes, facilitating the optimization strategy of land use structure and improving the ecological risk prevention capability. In this paper, the Yellow River Delta High-Efficiency Ecological Economic Zone is selected as the study site, which is undergoing a new round of coastal zone exploitation and has endured substantial land use change in the past decade. Land use maps of 2000, 2005 and 2010 were generated based on Landsat images by visual interpretation method, and the ecological risk index was then calculated. The index was 0.3314, 0.3461 and 0.3176 in 2000, 2005 and 2010 respectively, which showed a positive transition of regional ecological risk in 2005.

Heavy metals contamination in freshwater ecosystems has drawn attention worldwide. It is necessary to investigate heavy metals content and assess their ecological risk in order to protect the aquatic ecosystems. In this study, we collected surface sediment samples from the freshwater ecosystem of the city of Zhenjiang, in China, in both winter and summer. Then, we analyzed the seasonal and spatial distribution patterns of lead (Pb), chromium (Cr), cadmium (Cd), zinc (Zn), and copper (Cu). The contamination factor (CF), enrichment factor (EF), geo-accumulation index (Igeo), and potential ecological risk (Eri) were jointly used to assess the pollution degree and the ecological risk posed to the freshwater ecosystem by the aforementioned elements. Multivariate statistical analysis, including Pearson’s correlation and principal component analysis and cluster analysis, were used to identify potential sources of the investigated metals in this research area. Study results showed that: (1) the average concentrations values were 1.81 mg/kg and 1.15 mg/kg for Cd, 55.3 mg/kg and 62.2 mg/kg for Cu, 88.0 mg/kg and 52.5 mg/kg for Cr, 27.3 mg/kg and 22.8 mg/kg for Pb, 87.0 mg/kg and 271 mg/kg for Zn, in winter and summer, respectively. Amongst the investigated elements, the average concentrations of Cd, Cu, Cr, and Pb, were above the local background values in winter, whereas, Cd, Cu and Zn concentrations were higher than the background values in Zhenjiang; (2) The CF and EF indicated that Cd had a high contamination degree and a significant enrichment compare to others investigated metals in the surface sediment of in this research area. (3) Cd posed moderate, considerable, or very high ecological risks in different sites, while the other elements (i.e., Cu, Cr, Pb, and Zn) presented a low degree of ecological risk. (4) Multivariate statistical analyses results indicated Pb, Cu, and Zn had similar geochemical characteristics, while, Cd and Cr had significant differences with the above elements. Therefore, Pb, Cu, and Zn probably originate from the same sources, while Cd and Cr might have mixed sources, including both natural sources and human activities. Overall, more attention should be paid to Cd for risk assessment in the current study area. The findings of this study provide fundamental information for the evaluation and management of the heavy metals investigated in the freshwater ecosystem of Zhenjiang.

Short-Term Electricity Trading for System Balancing - An Empirical Analysis of the Role of Intraday Trading in Balancing Germany’s Electricity System

This paper is to study the harmonious development relationship of urbanization and regional eco-environment. Then the basic theory can be supplied to urbanization sustainable development and decision-making is supplied to city governor. In this study, the spatial mechanism between urban expansion and ecological risk is analyzed to determined the source of spatial ecological risks, risk drivers, risk resistance and risk characterization factors. The risk drivers are determined to be urban land expansion on the bottom, human economic activities in the middle as well as thermal space environment on the top-level;Risk drivers were identified as the integrity action of urban construction land patch area, patch shape, patch density, patch geometric gravity center, and landscape overall role; Risk resistance were identified as the integrity action of the stability of ecological landscape unit itself, the stability of neighborhood units and terrain slope; meanwhile ecological risk remote sensing characterization were identified as he integrity action of leaf area index and optical vegetation coverage. Based on the combined work mechanism of risk drivers, risk resistance and risk characterization factors, Spatial Ecological Risk Assessment Remote Sensing Model(SERA) was established Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya in Malaysia as example and combined the correlation data and the model. The results show that the ecological risk in the study area is still not high and accord with the develop rule between urbanization and ecological environment. So SERS model can make a true assessment for region ecological risk from urbanization and satisfy the need of this type study. The model supplies scientific theory for urban governor.

The rapid global expansion of offshore wind energy (OWE) has established it as a critical component of the renewable energy transition; however, this development concurrently introduces significant underwater noise pollution into marine ecosystems. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the acoustic footprint of OWE across its entire lifecycle, rigorously distinguishing between the high-intensity, acute impulsive noise generated during pile-driving construction and the chronic, low-frequency continuous noise associated with decades-long turbine operation. We critically evaluate the engineering capabilities and limitations of current underwater acoustic monitoring architectures, including buoy-based real-time monitoring nodes, cabled high-bandwidth systems (e.g., cabled hydrophone arrays with DAQ/DSP and fiber-optic distributed acoustic sensing, DAS), and autonomous seabed archival recorders (PAM deployment). Furthermore, documented biological impacts are synthesized across diverse taxa, ranging from auditory masking and threshold shifts in marine mammals to the often-overlooked sensitivity of invertebrates and fish to particle motion—a key metric frequently missing from standard pressure-based assessments. Our analysis identifies a fundamental gap in current governance paradigms, which disproportionately prioritize the mitigation of short-term acute impacts while neglecting the cumulative ecological risks of long-term operational noise. This review synthesizes recent evidence on chronic operational noise and outlines a conceptual pathway from event-based compliance monitoring toward long-term, adaptive soundscape management. We propose the implementation of integrated, adaptive acoustic monitoring networks capable of quantifying cumulative noise exposure and informing real-time mitigation strategies. Such a paradigm shift is essential for optimizing mitigation technologies and ensuring the sustainable coexistence of marine renewable energy development and marine biodiversity.

Integrated assessment of the impact of land use types on soil pollution by potentially toxic elements and the associated ecological and human health risk