Importance of Using Multiple Sampling Methodologies for Estimating of Fish Community Composition in Offshore Wind Power Construction Areas of the Baltic Sea

摘要

It is standard procedure that an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is conducted before larger constructions are built. To adequately describe the impact, methods used in an EIA should be carefully adapted considering both the character of the constructions under development and the environment that will be affected. The Baltic Sea is unique in being a brackish sea with comparable few species. In this area hundreds of offshore windmills will be constructed within the near future (1). This has highlighted several questions concerning how these constructions will influence fish communities (2-7). Whether they will have a positive or a negative effect on fish numbers, and how it may influence the fishery, is debated (5, 8-9). This lack of consensus could be due to the fact that investigations have so far only focused on sections of fish communities occurring in the vicinity of windmills.