ECOSYSTEM TYPOLOGY A WIND FARM SITING TOOL

摘要

The Rhode Island Coastal Resource Management Council (CRMC) has been leading an Ocean Special Area Management Plan (SAMP) effort, that will result in zoning the state coastalrnwaters to accommodate offshore wind farms. In earlier work, we approached offshore wind farm siting as an optimization problem, considering wind resources and technologicalrnconstraints. In this study, we introduce ecological constraints, within the conceptual framework of ecosystem services, and explore their effect using spatial multivariate statistical analysisrn(Principal Component and Cluster Analyses; PCCA). This yields an ecological typology, or a zoning, of the coastal area based on ecological variables. The method is extended to provide arnmore synthetic typology of ecosystem services by integrating, besides ecological services, food provisioning and recreation. The application of PCCA to the SAMP coastal area provides arnregionalization of the area into sub-ecosystems described by their: (1) dominant species, (2) biodiversity, summarized by biodiversity and richness indices, (3) resilience to wind farmrnimpact, and (4) fisheries activity. The methodology allows zoning the SAMP ecosystem into homogeneous sub-regions and identifying the most sensitive sub-regions to potential windrnfarm impact. Combining ecosystem services typologies with technological constraints and wind resources, provides a methodology to identify optimal wind farm siting areas. The method,rnalthough tested for the SAMP area is location independent.