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Impacts of human activities on the supply of marine ecosystem services: A conceptual model for offshore wind farms to aid quantitative assessments - PubMed

  • ️Sun Jan 01 2023

. 2023 Feb 15;9(3):e13589.

doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e13589. eCollection 2023 Mar.

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Impacts of human activities on the supply of marine ecosystem services: A conceptual model for offshore wind farms to aid quantitative assessments

Lennert Van de Pol et al. Heliyon. 2023.

Abstract

Increased pressures from human activities may cause cumulative ecological effects on marine ecosystems. Increasingly, the study of ecosystem services is applied in the marine environment to assess the full effects of human activities on the ecosystem and on the benefits it provides. However, in the marine environment, such integrated studies have yet to move from qualitative and score-based to fully quantitative assessments. To bridge this gap, this study proposed a 4-tiered method for summarizing available knowledge and modelling tools to aid in quantitative assessments of ecosystem services supply. First, the ecosystem functioning mechanisms underlying the supply of services are conceptually mapped. Second, the impacts of the human activity of interest are summarized and linked to the first conceptual model in a case-specific model of ecosystem services supply. Third, indicators are selected that would best represent changes in the most important parameters of the conceptual model in a quantitative manner. Fourth, the knowledge gained in the previous steps is used to select models that are most useful to quantify changes in ecosystem services supply under the human pressure of interest. This approach was applied to the case study of offshore wind energy in the Belgian part of the North Sea, which is one of the most rapidly expanding industries in the marine environment globally. This study provides a useful tool to proceed towards quantification of marine ecosystem services, highlighting the need for a fully integrated approach to developing environmental impact assessment tools.

Keywords: Conceptual model; Ecosystem functioning; Impact assessment; Indicators; Marine ecosystem services; Offshore wind energy.

© 2023 The Authors.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Image 1
Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1

Current and future offshore wind farms (OWF) in the Belgian Part of the North Sea (BPNS).

Fig. 2
Fig. 2

4-tiered method used to holistically map Ecosystem Services (ES) supply and to provide knowledge about which models should be selected to quantify changes in the supply of ES.

Fig. 3
Fig. 3

Generic conceptual ecosystem services (ES) model for the BPNS, including inputs from several experts. Blue hexagons, red boxes, and white circles represent ES, structures and processes, respectively. Blue arrows represent ES supply, green arrows represent trophic flows, black arrows material flows and dotted arrows represent non-trophic mediations. The model is non-directional and summarized ecological knowledge on ES supply. Each link is labelled with the ID used in the evidence library (see Supplementary Material 1).

Fig. 4
Fig. 4

Conceptual case-specific impact model of Offshore Wind Farms (OWF) presence on Ecosystem Services (ES) supply. The pathways are divided into the human activity/pressure of interest, the initial effects, ecosystem functioning and supporting services, and final ES. The labels of the linkages refer to the code in the evidence library. The white boxes, connected by arrows, represent structures and processes in the cause-effect chain(s) from the initial human activity to the supply of ES.

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