Lessons from stakeholder dialogues on marine aquaculture in offshore wind farms: Perceived potentials, constraints and research gaps
Introduction
The idea to combine offshore wind farm turbines as fixation point for aquaculture or to co-use an offshore wind farm site by installing aquaculture farms in between several wind turbines has seen considerable attention over the course of the last years (see for instance in the case of Germany: [1], [2], [3], The Netherlands: [4], Belgium: [5], UK: [6], France: [7]) (see Fig. 1).
While a significant body of research exists covering individual uses for offshore platforms, the interaction between these multiple uses has not been covered to a full extent on a European scale. This has changed with the recent call of the European Commission “Ocean of Tomorrow”, issued under the FP7 in 2011, which reflects the current state of “European Strategy for Marine and Maritime Research” (see Fig. 2).
In a first step, the aim of the call is to establish offshore platforms that can combine various functions, such as aquaculture, wind and solar energy, and transport services within the same infrastructure. It is believed that this could offer significant benefits in terms of economics, optimizing spatial planning and minimizing the impact on the environment.
In Germany, no commercial offshore aquaculture farm exists yet. To date, all attempts to move bivalve aquaculture off the coast to a more hostile environment within wind farm areas are on a pilot scale. Various projects including scientific studies on the biology, techniques and system design, economic potential, Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM), and the regulatory framework as well as potential synergies with offshore wind turbines have been investigated. A number of projects are underway to test the feasibility of offshore farming in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the German Bight, such as the ongoing project Offshore-Site-Selection (OSS). Here, wind farm planners as well as representatives of fisheries, economics and science are together suggesting future sites with best conditions for the cultivation of various aquaculture species.
In its wake, the multi-disciplinary project “Open Ocean Multi-Use” (OOMU) funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety was initiated [23], [24]. This project was a follow-up project of a series of multi-use projects combining aquaculture with offshore wind farms (see results e.g. in [2], [3]). Central focus of the OOMU-project was to gain more insight into the biological, socio-economic and technical aspects as well as to develop practical solutions for potential problems encountered by integrating aquaculture installations into offshore wind energy facilities. One of the key questions of the socio-economics sub-project was to identify the acceptance of such a multi-use scenario in society at large by addressing the various stakeholder groups simultaneously. By this it was hoped to detect hidden agendas, conflicts and allies, all of which directly and indirectly affect the reasoning of these groups in regard to multi-use of offshore areas. Thus, the approach used here is a transdisciplinary one, meaning that next to the interdisciplinary discourse among different strands of scientific disciplines, a range of different stakeholders from the private–public nexus is involved in the research effort [25].
The main motivation to broaden the scientific community and to include various forms of knowledge is based on the insight that successful and applicable solutions of many environmental and social problems, such as sustainable food production and renewable energy production, can only be found if actors and natural processes at the local, regional, national, and global level are conflated [26]. Much of this is related to social learning. Thus, knowing is an act of participation in complex “social learning systems” [27]. Beginning in the 1970s, the notion of social learning gained attention in many disciplines such as political science, in which the role played by advocacy coalitions in processes of societal change and learning was underlined [28]. Today, social learning can be regarded as an essential element of policy development and implementation. The sustainability-science approach is especially dependent on the inclusion of participatory elements in knowledge production [26]. By including the knowledge and interests of the diverse range set of stakeholders in the very beginning, this issue can be understood as learning of whole societies as a common endeavour [29], [30]. Indeed, it is not sufficient for only experts to be knowledgeable about the type of multi-use concept discussed in this paper. To remain meaningful, the public has to be included in the knowledge production in order to understand processes that take place in our economies, environment and societies which in turn will affect the outcomes of our research.
The objective of this contribution is to explore the practical application of offshore aquaculture within offshore wind farms from the perspective of the different stakeholders involved. The consideration of combining different uses is driven by the notion to meet the quest of spatial scarcity in the marine realm [1]. Our premise is that a multi-use concept combining sustainable marine energy and food production would benefit from a better understanding of the rationalities and interests among the different stakeholder groups involved. The identification of potential benefits and constraints, and the formulation of key research gaps may help to guide policy makers and the research community towards tailored, problem-focussed solutions to meet the challenge of sustainable offshore aquaculture.
Section snippets
Methodology
The OOMU project is part of a successive series of multidisciplinary research projects that were initiated as early as 2001 with a focus on combining offshore wind energy and marine aquaculture [31], [32], [1], [3]. The stakeholder workshop presented in this paper therefore builds on outcomes of previous workshops and interviews initiated in 2003 by the German shellfish growers in Emmelsbüll-Horsbüll [12] as well as by socio-economic scientists in 2005 in Bremerhaven [33]. While previous
Results
Following a brief summary on the central aspects of the OOMU project findings, the central issues, statements and views that emerged in the group discussions are detailed. As some of the issues were raised in several of the parallel working groups, the results are clustered into thematic issues and presented in a synthesized manner. The key issues are discussed in view of current literature, and gaps of knowledge and potential avenues of future research are formulated.
Discussion
Engaging with other fields of research and a wide range of different stakeholder groups with often diverging and vested interests can be a time-consuming process. It is hampered by the difficulty of fully endorsing the rationality behind the participating stakeholders and their views that are different to our own, since the way that individuals understand systems is also a reflection of how each individual has been exposed to the subject of concern (e.g. the role of mental mind-models in
Conclusions
Balancing the needs and interests of multiple stakeholders lies at the heart of policy-making; this holds especially true in areas where spatial claims clash with increasingly scarce resources and space, such as in coastal zones and increasingly also marine space. This makes the issue of how to tackle a multi-use approach for the offshore area so difficult, even more so, if one addresses sustainability and equity issues in its wake. Our research results confirm the assumption that there is a
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank all stakeholders involved in the long-standing, fruitful discourse on marine aquaculture–offshore wind energy co-use. This work was carried out as part of the project “Multiple Nutzung und Co-Management von Offshore-Strukturen: Marine Aquakultur und Offshore-Windparks (Open Ocean Multi-Use (OOMU))” and financed by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety, Project no: 0325206.
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